Supernatural
by Sarabibliomania
Summary: Heaven and Hell. Demons and Angels. Destiny and Free Will. Sam and Dean. And the girl in the center of it all ...
1. Introduction

Hello, everyone. My name is Sara and this is my first fan fiction in both writing and posting order.

I started planning the fan fiction for this since before I started watching the show and after I started watching I was able to better flesh out the story and since then have made only minor changes to how it progressed.

Several things:

I don't own anything. This is just an incredibly well written, acted and supported television show that was created by Eric Kripke and now in the hands of Sera Gamble. I simply took the story and twisted and manoeuvred the details to include the characters, relationships and storylines that I own.

I have planned the series from the beginning and there are very few details that I have yet to include into the story. This unfortunately means that if there is an aspect of the story or plot that you do not like I am unlikely to change it as I have dedicated a great deal of time to planning and creating the story and am very proud of how it developed. If you cannot live with the story or plot that you are having issues with I kindly ask you to find another story that would please you more.

As those who watch the show you may know that it is not yet finished filming and as a result of this I do not know myself how my story will end as I base my story around how the show plays how. I am beginning to have a clear idea of how it might end but this is subject to change.

To keep the details of the show accurate I watch each episode while writing and constantly rewind to make sure that I am getting the facial expressions, emotions and nuances correct. Some of them may change or be taken out however in order to fit with my story.

The character I have written and who we view the story through is my favourite developed character that I have created. She is deeply flawed and complex and thus very human and if you pick up on the tiny details and subtle developments of the character I hope that you can find that you enjoy her as much as I do.

I have dedicated several years into developing this fan fiction and perfecting it and so every detail is carefully planned out and crucial in the development in the story. The details may not mean as much to you as they do to me but hopefully over time you'll realize and appreciate how important they are to the development of the story, characters and their relationships to one another.

This story is a love triangle but not a traditional one that fits into the formula used by YA writers in recent years. Her relationship with both of the men in the love triangle is very different from one another, very complex and very deep in how she cares for them and them for her.

In addition to the love triangle there is the occasional romance which develop in accordance to the story and one side romance that developed further then I expected and rises to as near importance as the love triangle but obviously not as on par.

Because the show has not yet finished airing I am still undecided on which of the men she picks but as I have further developed the story I am beginning to have an idea of who she chooses and why. I understand that over time people may choose one of the men over the other as who she should be with and I apologize that not all of you will finish reading it satisfied as it would be unrealistic and selfish for her to choose to be with both. Rest assured however that I will not randomly pick one but make my decision based how the story develops.

My character is not in every scene of the story and there is the occasional episode in which she will not appear but if there is a certain scene that she does not appear in and we both agree it should be included I'll write out that scene.

I base my writing on how it would be if it were actually airing so if a development starts occurring but it is not blatantly revealed then I will keep it out of the characters thoughts and only hinted until I feel fit to include it.

If you have any questions about the story, characters or relationships I am more than happy to answer them but understand I will not answer them if the answer involves spoilers. Also be aware if you are snarky or rude in your questions I will respond in kind.

I love Supernatural from the bottom of my heart and am so proud to be a part of the Fandom and because of this I will always be respectful towards the developments they created in the show and defending them against those who feel the need to insult it for the sake of insulting.

This story will be rated M for sex, violence and swearing. If you are uncomfortable with any of these things I suggest that you find another story but I promise they will be written with care and not throw in gratuitously for the sake of it.

I hope to hear from you all soon and hope you enjoy my story though I will perfectly understand if you do not. Cheers.


	2. 102 Wendigo

Disclaimer: I own nothing. The show was created by Eric Kripke and now held in the hands of Sera Gamble. All I own is the character and the relationships she develops.

I walked back into the bar, wiping my damp hands onto my jeans to cause smudged hand prints. I paused as I walked in, the scent of body odor, smoke and alcohol assaulting my senses. Greed, hunger, boredom, anger and lust … the emotions vibrating through the room tensed like a hot wire. I paused, letting it hit me and soak in. Blurred thoughts, senses and voices clawed through my head and pressed against the insides. I took a deep breath and continued my way behind the bar, the "voices" calming somewhat to a bearable level. A large man sat on the other side of the bar, his girth taking up almost half of it. Though that seemed like a generous exaggeration. He smirked in what he assumed a charming way at Alyssa, his fingers sliding over the sides of his beer and collecting the moisture. Lewd thoughts and scenarios oozed from him and beat me back with the strength. He obviously hadn't learned the skill of keeping his painfully obvious thoughts to himself. Alyssa tried to smile politely and ran her fingers through the cloth, a distraction from his persistent advances. She was uncomfortable, desperate and bordering on becoming scared by his inability to give up. I sighed and walked over, grabbing a slippery knife off the counter and running a damp cloth over the sharp edge. Lemon seeds rolled off it and scattered onto the damp surface.

"Okay, then how about this …." The man started, an eager grin on his face at the prospect of Alyssa's denial being a game of "hard to get."

"I'm sorry, sir, but I've already said no and that is my answer," Alyssa said, a weariness to her voice that suggested that it had not been the first or fifth time she had said this to him. She glanced up as she saw me and looked away, a clear routine to whenever people saw me. "Hi."

"Hey," I said and rolled a lemon within reach and balanced it between my fingers. I dug the knife into the flesh and it sank through easily, juice oozing out of the sides and staining my hands. "This guy bothering you?" I asked, turning the sliced lemon over and once again digging in the knife with a somewhat more threatening manner then last time. Alyssa flinched slightly as the blade contacted with the surface.

"No, no …," the man quickly said, sensing the threatening danger like a deer sensing the presence of a hungry wolf.

"Because if you are …," I began, turning the lemon again and violently thrusting the knife through it again to separate the fruit into quarters. "…Then I have no problem taking you out back and gutting you like a fish and hanging you out to dry." To book end my threat I held up the knife, juice and seeds leaking down the sides with a somewhat ominous air. He paled drastically and his lip quivered with possible responses with his instinct directly contradicting them. He tossed several bills on the counter and turned and left, his walk tensed like he was about to break into a run.

"Thanks," Alyssa shyly said, her hands busied with clearing up his half drunken beer and rings left behind.

"No problem," I said, uncertain how to handle her "thanks." I unattached the lemons from the blade and let them drop into the lemon and lime bin. One rolled out and I picked it back up and bit into it, the bitter taste bursting in my mouth. The torn flesh caught between my teeth and I tugged the fruit out with its skin ragged.

"Table five hasn't been served yet," Alyssa said like an afterthought, her head barely nodding toward the apparently unserved table five. Her nerves were set on the edge, balancing on a shaky rim as if expecting me to strike out at her. She didn't have to worry; she was one of the few people that I actually liked. She was a little squeamish but for the most part unthreatening. I glanced to where she directed her nod to see two young, attractive men sitting at a table with a laptop set up in front of them. One was of large, muscular build and floppy brown hair. The other was slightly smaller with spiked brown hair and an assault of unsettling déjà vu.

"Really? Thought everyone would be all over them," I commented, rolling out another lemon and peeling off the sticker.

"Guess not," she said shortly, not elaborating further though I'm sure with another waitress she would have continued eagerly.

"Okay," I shrugged, tossing the quarters into the bin and wiping my hands on the cloth. I glanced back over at the two men, several papers spread out between them as they took turns glancing between them and the laptop. They were more closed off then the usual attractive men who came into the bar, not hitting on the waitresses or showing off with pool. Despite this they both had a somewhat "rugged" quality about them that was in direct contrast to their quiet actions. Beer. Definitely two beers. I ducked into the lower fridge and pulled open the metal door. A breath of frosted air hit me in the face and I brushed past it and grabbed onto the two bottles by their necks. I stood back up and shut the door behind me with a satisfying click. I grabbed the bottle opener and twisted off the lids, the twisted metal clattering onto the counter. I slid a tray out of the cupboard and settled the bottles on its uneven top. I shifted the tray into the crook of my arm and walked around the edge of the bar and into the din of the rest of the bar. The almost nauseating wall of voices and thoughts hit me hard and I paused to absorb it with as little as possible ill effects. They blurred slightly, a mist instead of a fog swirling through my head. I side stepped through the mix matched tables with occupying men and women with their drinks and greasy plates of food. A man let out a loud burst of laughter as I walked past, his head thrown back as if the explosion of noise wasn't disruptive enough to express his amusement. I grimaced with the noise and shallow thoughts that wafted from him like a foul odor. Money, women, beer … basic instinct wrapped up into approximately two hundred pounds of fat and flannel.

" … That's a fraction of a second. Whatever this thing is, it can move," the larger man was saying, glancing between the laptop and the other man, his finger clicking on a key.

"Let me guess," I interrupted no desire to politely wait until they were done talking. "Two beers." I set the two beers onto the small table amongst the scattered papers, several of them looking like smudged photo copies of newspapers. One of them had the date "1959" in faded letters across the headline.

"Thank you," the larger man politely said, gathering up the papers back into a file folder with a somewhat urgent air.

"Wow, physic and pretty," the other man congratulated. "How do you pull it off?" He flashed a charming grin at me, the kind of grin that could make any girl melt at the knees. Or at least the kind of grin that _he _thought could make any girl melt at the knees.

"Probably the same way you pull off your good looks and lack of flirting skills," I responded, in no mood for him or frankly anyone else. His smile faded somewhat as he searched for a witty response to help him save face. His partner laughed somewhat, a short sweet chuckle that set an unnatural shiver down my spine. I glanced over at him, a small grin still on his face that touched the shiver and made it hold out longer than necessary or appropriate. I turned back to his friend, suddenly unnerved.

"You can pay up front," I said shortly, the man still struggling somewhat to think of a response. There was something irritatingly familiar about him, a word on the tip of my tongue that I couldn't quite get the feel of. That combined with the shiver his friend produced made my dislike of the table increase heatedly. I brushed by the surface and crowd, the tray caught between my side and arm. The loudness of the bar resumed and I welcomed it like a familiar hurt that reminded you that you were still alive.

"Hey doll face, can I get a beer?" A booming voice broke out from a small table of men. I turned to them, the source of the voice a skinny yet sweaty faced man with a baseball cap on his head to cover up the fact that he was growing bald. A dozen or so empty bottles littered the tables, beer leaking onto the surface and promising a sticky clean up later. I walked over, pulling the tray out from between my arm and side.

"Call me doll face again and I'll be sure to remove yours," I warned, grabbing onto several bottles at once, their moisture slippery on my hands. The men all made noises of approval, finding my threat more amusing then an actual hint that if they continued then I'd carry through.

"We got a feisty one," one of them grinned, encouraged that I was a challenge to be taken on. I made an inward face at his response, nausea creeping under my skin at the vulgar vibes that he was giving off. A warm shiver replaced the nausea and I glanced up to see the larger man I just served watching me. There was a curious expression on his face, an intrigue and warmth that nearly stripped me raw. He saw me watching and quickly turned away, busying himself with his papers. I turned back to the table, suddenly feeling like I wanted to cry and hating the vulnerable feel of it.

"You alright, babe?" The man asked with false sympathy, his hand going to my arm. His finger scrapped an old scar, the marking of it embedded into my skin like an ugly reminder of a much better forgotten past. I jerked out of reach, angry at him, the large man, his déjà vu inducing friend and everything else that could possibly be connected to me in this moment.

"Yeah, well don't get used to saying that word. If God is kind then you won't be reproducing now or anytime soon," I said and turned away, the bottles clanking noisily against each other. The men laughed, again intrigued by what they should have felt warned by.

"Check out that ass," one of them commented, whistling lowly. I bit my lip hard enough to draw blood, reminding myself that I would probably get fired if I turned around and smashed one of the bottles over his head.

I tossed the bottles into the recycling, the glass shells crashing against each other and threatening to break under the abuse. I threw another one in and it crashed against the edge of the bin, a break spreading out of its surface. I gritted my teeth together, the sound grating on my nerves and fraying patience. The noise was louder now, beating inside my head like a persistent din that wouldn't cease. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, the pressure of keeping calm making me shake somewhat. I took another breath, wiping off my hands and scrubbing at the sticky surface of the tray. My pressure lowered somewhat, individual thoughts starting to separate themselves in my mind. Slight nerves and worry broke through strongly, coming from a person more closely to me than others.

"Davies on the loose," Alyssa whispered to me under her breath as she walked past, in her arms several plates with leftover food staining the sides. I glimpsed behind me to see the bulky form of Mr. Beater making his way over. Determination and practiced words were swirling around in his head, a dizzyingly pattern directed at me. I wiped my hands as he walked over, turning so that I could face him and give no illusion that I was backing down from whatever he wanted to say.

"Hello Kate," he said, stopping in front of me with fading confidence.

"Mr. Beater," I said, scrubbing at my already clean wrists. Everyone was told to call him Davies as a sign of affection. I was given no such offer. He glanced behind me at Alyssa who was still giving off heavy fear and worry, her thoughts the least hidden from me out of everyone I knew.

"Alyssa, could you maybe give us a moment?" Mr. Beater asked politely, a soft spot for her that he had for no one else.

"Sure," she squeaked and brushed past me in a hurry, her curled red hair covering her face. Mr. Beater turned back to me and took a deep breath for presumed courage.

"Kate, I have been hearing complaints from some of the other waitresses that you have been threatening customers," he said, pushing the words out in a rush like they might get stuck in his throat and go unheard. Debra probably, maybe Lindsay. Never Alyssa. She was too scared of me for that, too aware that it was only my actions that kept her from numerous unwanted advances.

"And?" I asked, not one hundred percent sure where he was planning on taking the conversation.

"And …," he continued, a little shocked that I hadn't gotten the point in his introduction. " … And I am going to need you to stop … threatening customers. Flirting is accepted but when you are promising to remove body parts … that is where I have to draw the line."  
>"I thought you'd draw the line at the actual removal of body parts," I said and allowed a small smile. It felt unnatural and out of place on my lips, a glove on a hand that used to fit but had seen grown out of shape. His face grew somewhat red, pressure building in his head like a kettle about to go off. He took a deep breath and his face returned to a somewhat normal color. Though to be fair he always looked a little bit purple.<p>

"For now I'm going to let this slide but you have to know that we're not going to keep walking on egg shells around you because Hailey thinks that Tommy is missing," he said with deliberate care, knowing that the eggs he was supposedly walking on were cracking. Heat flared inside me and I dropped the cloth from my hand, least it start smoking.

"If Hailey says that he's missing … then he's missing," I said through gritted teeth, warmth pooling in my palm and spreading to my fingers. I took a deep breath, knowing it would be hard to explain if my hand were to suddenly burst into flame.

"Alright," he said defensively. "But if he's not missing and is really fine, you have to understand that there will be no more special treatment." He turned and walked away, in his mind his point clearly made with neon signs. I glared at his back, anger pounding in my head and hand with nauseating strength. I turned away from the door and looked down at my nearly pulsing hand. Tiny licks of flame caught up on hand and over my fingers, growing in heat and strength until my entire hand was glowing with fire. I watched with detachment, the calming release of energy helping the pressure in my head and rate of my heart.

"Hey Kate …," Debra started, walking around the end of the bar with a frustrating amount of bad timing. I quickly thrust my hand into the ice bucket – not having enough time to calm the flames down myself – and watched as a hissing smoke was expelled.

"I'll tell you again … I don't think Ben should come," Roy repeated, his back turned to me as he rummaged through the back of his truck with an over important air. I rolled my eyes and adjusted the strap on my lower ankle, the hunting knife it held pulling at the cloth with the threat to rip. Ben watched me with interest, used to the strangeness of who I was to question the fact that I was carrying a hunting knife on my ankle. My finger grazed an old scar, the twisted shape of it curling over my ankle bone. A flash of memory and pain rushed through me like flowing water, an old broken scream embracing them. I snapped my leg off the rock and down onto the ground, angry that I allowed myself for a brief moment to remember. Car wheels groaned over gravel and I looked up to see an Impala up the narrow slope of hill. Ben also looked up in interest, pulling at the bag straps over his shoulders. I stood up, barely reaching a height above his head as the car grew closer and those inside became easier to recognize. They were the men from last night in the bar, the shorter one in the driver's seat. Dread collected heavily in my stomach and I felt my shoulders drop with a sudden weariness. Hailey walked over to where the car stopped, shaking her head in disbelief, her posture suggesting that she already knew who they were. The doors opened and they climbed out, the one who had been driving with a friendlier, more causal air then the other.

"You guys got room for two more?" He asked, his arms open in a friendly manner.

"Wait, you guys want to come with us?" Hailey asked in disbelief as they walked over, a duffel bag over the larger mans shoulders.

"Who are these guys?" Roy asked, threatened by the sudden increase of testosterone in the air. Apparently since I was a girl and small for my age, I didn't count as a threat. Hailey turned with an amused smile.

"Apparently this is all the park service could muster up for search and rescue," She said, her lips almost breaking into a smile at the ridiculousness of the prospect. I walked closer to where they stood, Ben shyly following me.

"You're rangers?" Roy asked in doubt as the larger man walked over with ease, an emotionless expression on his face. He stopped a foot from me, towering over me in height and build.

"Hi," he said simply, nothing in his tone or expression to suggest anything helpful to his personality or motives. A heavy flutter moved through me and I felt a sudden anger and hatred towards him for causing this nearly unheard of emotion in me.

"Hi," Ben replied, staring down at his feet like they could offer some assistance in this situation.

"And you're hiking out in biker boots and jeans?" Hailey asked, hands on her hips like they asserted a sort of authority. I looked back over at them, distracting myself from the presence of the man so much more frightening in some many different ways then I wanted to admit. The man looked down at him, checking that he wasn't in fact wearing biker boots and jeans.

"Oh sweetheart I don't do shorts," he said with a growing grin and walked past her with a suggestive smile that I knew she was the type of girl to have her knees melted by.

"What you think this is funny?" Roy asked, thrusting himself back into the conversation that he had felt had gone on too long without him. "It's dangerous backcountry out there, her brother might be hurt." The man looked back at him for a moment before looking at his friend with a look that suggested an inside joke between them.

"Believe me; I know how dangerous this could get. We just want to help her find her brother, that's all," he said, nodding back at Hailey as he said this. He turned away from Roy and continued up the hill towards me, his friend and Ben. He stopped in front of me, a growing grin on his face like he finally came up with a comeback from my last night.

"Hi, I'm Dean," he said with a confidence like his name was something to be proud of and held out his hand for me to shake. I glanced down at it and back up at him, irritation bubbling in my head like heated beads. I glanced at his friend who looked somewhat tired and gave me a look that said "just humor him." I glanced back and turned away, nothing in my current state of mind speaking of patience or "humoring". Ben jogged up behind me so that he could walk in pace with my steps and I wrapped an arm around his shoulders to push him in front of me where I could watch over him.

I walked over a peeling fallen tree, the pine needles soundlessly moving beneath my feet to create makeshift foot prints. Ben walked in front of me, his head bowed to watch his feet as he stepped over various branches decorating the path. Roy and Dean walked in front of him, Dean walking with a cocky air as if to proof that through the actions of his footsteps that he was better than Roy. In an amusing twist, Roy seemed to be doing the same thing, not pleased with being challenged. This fact along helped ebb off some of my irritation for Dean. Hailey jogged up beside me, slightly out of breath as she fell in line next to me.

"Do you know these guys?" She whispered lowly to me, leaning in close to avoid us being overheard.

"Kind of," I admitted and glanced behind me at the larger man. He was walking behind us with deliberate slowness, a bored air to his walk that suggested he would rather be anywhere else. He looked up as he sensed me watching him and our eyes met for a brief moment. A sudden desire crawled through me to know his name, to put some sort of identification on him and rid him of whatever irritating power he had over me. Something caught under my feet and I stumbled, Hailey catching my arm to keep me from falling. I felt my face heat angrily and I stepped over the next rock, frustrated with my momentary loss of control.

"Thanks," I mumbled as she let go of my arm, her eyes scanning me as they often did for some sort of clue to what was going on under the surface. I bowed my head, giving her no leeway or directions to finding out.

"How do you know them?" I wondered, brushing back a loose strand of hair that had escaped one of my braids.

"They came to ask some questions about Tommy," she explained, brushing aside a fern that licked at her bare legs.

"Seems hard to believe that they are rangers," I voiced quietly, brushing away another fern, their ticklish brush uncomfortable on my skin.

"Yeah well," she admitted, unsure on how to voice her skepticism or accepting that I probably already knew, knowing and accepting my uncanny ability to at all times know what she was thinking.

"Roy, you said you did a little hunting," Dean said, saying the words like he had been planning them for a while and found now a good comedic moment to say it.

"Yeah, more than a little," Roy responded, already bored with where the conversation was going.

"Uhhh … what furry creatures do you hunt?" Dean continued curiously, his eyes dropped to watch where he was going.

"Mostly buck sometimes bear," Roy said in continued disinterest, his eyes scanning the area, his gun at the ready.

"Tell me, uh …Bambi or Yogi ever hunt you back?" Dean asked with a barely suppressed grin, moving ahead of Roy with an air like it was an achievement. Roy grabbed him by the back of the jacket and jerked him back violently. I paused, watching and waiting in case he decided to shot him. It might ease my mood a bit if I got to watch. Dean looked back at him, his thoughts somewhere along the same line as mine though the branched off in what our reactions would be. Hailey, Ben and the man also stopped, watching for what might happen next.

"Whatcha doing Roy?" Dean asked curiously, his voice somewhat taunting. Roy leaned over in front of him and picked a stick off the ground. A spindly one, not one strong enough to beat Dean to death if the idea was still on his mind. He snapped it down violently and metal teeth snatched close around it as the bear trap on the ground was activated. Hailey and Ben both flinched beside me at the rasped noise. Roy looked back up at him with a smirk.

"You should watch where you're stepping … ranger," he said, heavy sarcasm on the last word. Dean nodded slowly with amusement and barely controlled desire to punch him. Something inside me snapped a jagged piece of the puzzle that didn't fit no matter how hard you tried to force it. I knelt to the ground, my hands hovering over my shoes with the projected assumption that I was tying my shoes. Hailey and the other guy moved ahead while Ben hovered next to me, looking down at me with an endearing sense of protection and desire to be protected.

"I'm alright Ben, go ahead," I assured him, a tiny smile on my lips with enough warmth to reassure him but not too much that it felt fake and unnatural. He nodded and walked on, his head once again bowed. I lowered my own head and pulled my knife out of my strap, the ridged side of the blade pressing into my palm. I slowly stood up, the knife concealed in the sleeve of my shirt and running along my skin like a cold breeze. Dean turned back to look at me, his body turned to see me with his feet still facing forward.

"It's a bear trap," he said with childish pride as I stepped closer and slid the knife from my sleeve and pressed the tip against his stomach, not enough to make him bleed but enough that he knew what it was and its intention.

"Whoa," he said in shock, stepping back slightly but I stepped forward again, the tip never leaving the folds of his shirt.

"Who are you?" I demanded, a slight rasp to my voice that mimicked the edge of a blade being sharpened.

"Uh …," he said with mock confusion. "My name is Dean, I'm a ranger …"

"You're not a ranger," I assured him, mild warnings alerting me that he was lying and that there was more to him then met the eye. Things under the surface of his skin that was frighteningly similar to what lay underneath my own skin. "You didn't pack any provisions. You guys are carrying a duffel bag. You're not rangers so who the hell are you?" He opened his mouth to respond, another lie on his tongue. I pressed the knife harder, pressing just barely into his skin. "Tell me or I'll gut you right here," I warned, the handle of the knife digging into my hand with the intensity of my grip. Heat flowed through me again, channeling to my hands as they often did. I took a deep breath through my nose, just to hold onto a shred of calm or risk bursting into flames which would be slightly more difficult to cover up. He stared at me and something in him seemed to relax, the gentle ebb of the waves giving out after the initial crash.

"Sam and I are brothers, and we're looking for our father. He might be here, we don't know. I just figure that me and your friend, we're in the same boat," he bookended his explanation with a shrug, a sudden honesty and innocence in him that was strangely endearing. I stared at him, my eyes scanning his face and eyes for some shred of a lie or dishonesty that would give me reason to not sympathize for him. Not make me find him and his brother – Sam – fascinating in a way that told of an unspoken need and connection that I had suppressed for so long.

"Why didn't you just say that from the start?" I wondered, my hand loosening somewhat on the knife and my own grip on the anger I had a moment ago so strongly felt.

"Well … trust, for one thing which I think you can understand given that you have a knife on me," he said, a smirk pulling at the corner of his lips. I bit my tongue to keep my own back but slid the knife back into my sleeve and out of danger of puncturing his skin. "Besides it's probably the most honest I've ever been with a woman. Ever. So we okay?" He gave me a searching look, taking me in the way I had tried taking him in. I stared back, uncertain whether or not I should trust him or tell him to go to hell. I knelt and slid out the knife and zipped it back into the strap on my ankle, the weight comforting against my knife where it was still easily reachable.

"Yeah, we're good," I admitted and re-stood, digging my hands into my pockets in a hatefully awkward pose. I quickly pulled them out and flattened them by my sides, continued irritation at myself for being caught vulnerable in more situations in the past two days then I had in the past two years. I'd have to convince Roy to let me shoot something first chance we got. He grinned in relief, most likely glad that he no longer had the threat of his insides being shredded.

"And what do you mean I didn't pack provisions?" He asked and pulled a crumbled bag of peanut M&M's out of his pocket. He gave me a "ha, ha" look and turned away with a smugness that made me grab his arm and pull him back. He looked at me with surprise and slight fear –most likely wondering if I had any knives anywhere else – and I reached into the bag and took out a handful. They bumped unevenly against each other and I stepped around him with my own sense of smugness.

I brushed the persistent ferns away from the path, their tendrils whipping back in forth with the movement of those in front of me also brushing them away. Ben popped another M&M into his mouth and crunched on it quietly, his eyes searching the surrounding woods with interest. I also scanned the woods, taking in the greenery thick trees and suppressing silence that seemed to push down on the air with intense pressure. Memory slashed through my mind like a knife through flesh, whimpering and gasping breaths as harsh branches and shrubbery clawed at my skin and clothes.

"This is it," Roy said stopping ahead and turning to allow Sam to pass him. "Blackwater Ridge."

"What coordinates are we at?" Sam asked with a strange sense of urgency as he walked on past, further into the canopy of trees. Roy's shoulders dropped in exasperation like the question was a taxing one and pulled his GPS out of his vest … a clearly exhausting task. He moved his fingers over the buttons and kept his face trained on the tiny screen.

"35-111," He answered and slid the GPS back into his vest, looking at Sam with an "Are you happy?" look. Dean stepped over to where Sam was standing, the two of them looking around with eyes trained for something that didn't creep into the rest of our imaginations. Maybe not mine though; my sense of imagination had been ripped to tattered shred by the real things in the shadows. Hailey stopped next to me, slightly breathless, Ben on the other side of her with his continued disinterested stare. I scanned the nearby environment, the misty air sharpening everything into it to an eerie edge. The only noises were the low voices of Dean and Sam and Hailey's still labored breath. It was quiet. Too quiet.

"I'm going to take a look around," Roy said, sliding his GPS back into his vest with the assumption that he had taken it out again. Why he had was uncertain considering that our coordinates hadn't changed due to lack of movement. Sam and Dean suddenly turned, snapped out of their private discussion.

"You shouldn't go off by yourself," Sam with continued boredom, turning back to stare mindlessly off into the distance.

"That's sweet … don't worry about me," Roy said, a somewhat sadistic grin and directed his gun with a more threatening air as he moved between the two of them. Dean raised his eyebrows with a "whatever" look and followed. I walked after him, sliding my thumbs under my bag straps and tugging to relieve the sensation of them digging into my shoulders.

"All right everybody stays together," Dean advised his hand out to make sure that he included everyone in his advice. He glanced around to make sure that his message was delivered. Ben nodded to show that he heard, the headphones in his ears moving along with the gesture.

"Let's go," Dean finished and started walking again, Sam standing still and watching for Hailey, Ben and me to go first. Ben and Hailey looked around nervously, picking up on whatever made the area so unnatural.

Sam wondered off the path slightly, his saunter holding out on the fact that he was bored and uninterested on what was going on. He turned slightly and looked over at me, sensing that I was watching him. I looked away and focused on the large cracked rock by my side, the roots of a long gone tree still crawling out of it like boney fingers.

"Hailey, over here," Roy called, his voice cutting with urgency. Hailey spun and bolted up the path, her face a contrast of relief and fear. I ran after her, shrubbery and low branches snapping across my bare legs. She stumbled to a stop and I stopped next to her, out of breath and my legs stinging. Her breath came out like a sob as she took in the sight in front of her.

"Oh my god," she gasped. The campsite in front of us was destroyed, tents shredded and bloody with destroyed gear scattered everywhere like it had been thrown in anger.

"Likes like a grizzly," said Roy with a "case closed" manner, edging through the destruction. I walked past Hailey and into the midst, biting my lip to keep from socking Roy in the head. Hailey swallowed hard, looking close to tears as she walked further in. Horrific scenarios pounded through her head and her lip trembled with a struggle to keep herself from falling apart. I glanced back at Ben who was watching with wide eyes, his hands gripping his bag straps with white knuckles.

"Stay close to me," I whispered to him, something threatening hovering on the edge of my mind. He nodded and shuffled closer, bumping into my backpack.

'Tommy?" Hailey called out and un-clicked the straps over her chest holding up her bag and dropping it to the ground. "Tommy?" She cried out louder this time, a desperate movement in her steps as she moved deeper into the camp. Sam jogged after her with stress.

"Shh," he hissed as she called out again. I stepped closer to be within striking distance if he did something and Ben moved with me like a magnet with a strong pull.

"Why?" Hailey worriedly asked, turning to look at him with glistening eyes. Dean knelt beside me with a deliberate air and picked something small and flat off the earth. He stood again and looked down at it with interest before glancing at me. I stepped closer to see it – Ben dutifully following – and saw that it was a picture marred with blood and dirt. It was me and Tommy, his arm wrapped around my shoulders and his lips to my hair. I had an almost smile on my face; my fingers lingering on the arm wrapped around me. An unidentified emotion broke in my chest and I snatched it from his hand. He stared at me for a moment before moving away and I looked back down at the ruined photo. I swiped my finger across it, collecting and removing the smudged blood and dirt.

"Sam!" Dean called, half gone in the trees. Sam turned away from Hailey and jogged after his voice. I glanced over at Ben with the silent intent for him to stay and followed Sam. The two of them were knelt in the dirt, staring at the ground like they were reading something there that the rest of us wouldn't be able to.

" … But here the tracks just vanish," Dean was saying, his eyes alternating between the ground and Sam. I leaned against the tree, half hidden by its girth. "It's weird. I'll tell you what … that's no skin walker or black dog." He stood as he said this, looking up at Sam who towered over him. The words "skin walker" and "black dog" wafted through my mind like old memories, old words with meanings that used to have an impact on me. He turned as he finished and paused as he noticed me listening. Sam also turned and paused, taking in the fact that I had overheard. The three of us stared at each other and I was sliced through with a realization that there were a million things they weren't telling us. I scanned the two of them, a thousand possible details about them just now piecing together to make an unfinished puzzle of who they were. I pushed my back off the tree and walked away, the feel of the bark still imprinted in my back. Hailey was kneeling in the ground, a small metal object in her hands. I moved closer and saw that it was Tommy's cell phone, the frame of it cracked and bloody. She cradled it tearfully, turning it over in her trembling hands. I stood beside her with Ben once again returned to my side. Various clichéd measures of comfort suggested themselves to my mind; over half of them cringe worthy. I wasn't good at offering comfort. Or compassion. Or anything really that didn't involve sarcasm or weaponry. Dean glanced at me as he walked over, trying in a single look to figure out how much I had heard and what my reaction to it was.

"Hey, he could still be alive," he poorly reassured her, now kneeling at her side. Even I could tell that it was a hollow attempt, one that echoed with so many more horrific possibilities.

"Help!" The voice cut through the silence and trees with pain and desperation. We all turned to the source, the leaves hinting at a million places that it could have come from. Roy took off, gun clutched in his hands and Dean immediately rushed after him. I bolted as well, Ben trailing close behind with my continued suspicion of magnetic energy. Roy burst through the trees ahead of us, the voice calling out with continued agony. It wasn't Tommy. It couldn't be Tommy. I knew his voice. The branches slashed out at me, the rocks teasingly tripping my feet as I ran to catch up, my short legs no match for those – especially Sam – with a much taller stature. The voice stopped and I stumbled to a rest, my heart racing in my chest. Everyone else froze, their posture locked as they tried not to make any noise. The air itself seemed to hold its breath for any sign of where the voice could have disappeared to. Roy held up his gun experimentally, the mechanics of it clicking.

"It seemed like it was from around here, didn't it?" Hailey asked, breathless from the run and possibility that we might be close. The wind blew aimlessly, rustling everything with an eerie form. My eyes travelled to Sam whose minuscule head movements suggested that he was looking around with growing unease.

"Everybody back to camp," he said with mild urgency hiding a greater sense of it beneath.

I broke back into the clearing, a rotting log shattering under my footsteps.

"Our packs," Hailey voiced in disbelief, the earth empty of anything that hadn't been destroyed in the initial attack.

"So much for my GPS and my satellite phone," said Roy in a tedious indifference, dropping to his knees. I rolled my eyes, the sound of his voice like a cheese grater on my already bleeding nerves.

"What the hell is going on?" Hailey asked in attempted calm, fear and confusion breaking through.

"It's smart. It wants to cut us off so we can't call for help," said Sam with barely controlled frustration in his tone. He glanced back at me, silently confirming that I understood that it wasn't a person.

"You mean someone some nut job out there just stole all our gear," Roy offered, smugness in his voice that his explanation was more logical. Sam moved dangerously close to Dean, an angered tone to his posture, speaking low. Dean nodded at him and they walked off into the trees. I shifted on my feet, both my eyes trained on Ben and Hailey to keep them in sight. Now wasn't the time to leave them unprotected.

"Some nut job," Roy repeated with a nod towards me, hinting that the nut job had a text book definition that I myself filled out.

"Shut up, Roy," I advised wearily. He paused, his mouth half open with disbelief before closing it, throwing me an angered look. Well, he could shove it up his ass with whatever else made him think he was so high and mighty. Hailey looked behind her at him and moved closer to me, standing next to Ben who hovered by my backpack.

"Alright listen up, time to go," Sam said, moving back from in the trees with a quicker step of momentum in his walk. "Things have gotten more … complicated."

"What?" Hailey demanded, sensing that something else was going on that wasn't being vocalized.

"Kid don't worry, whatever's out there, I think I can handle it," said Roy with attempted professionalism and reassurance that seemed out of place with the torn and bloody tents behind him.

"It's not me I'm worried about," Sam said with un-narcissistic confidence. "If you shoot this thing you're just gonna make it mad. We have to leave now."

"One you're talking nonsense, two you're in no position to be giving orders," Roy said with growing anger.

"Relax," Dean advised him with contempt.

'We never should have let you come out here in the first place, alright? I'm trying to protect you," Sam said calmly.

"You protect me?" Roy demanded, stepping forward threateningly. "I was hunting these woods when your mommy was still kissing you goodnight."

"Yeah?" Sam challenged, looking down at Roy who – like everyone else – he towered over. "It's a damn near perfect hunter. It's smarter then you …" Like every other moron that populated the town. "… and its going to hunt you down and eat you alive unless we get your ass out of here." Roy laughed with a maniacal edge and I felt an ease in the rough hatred I had previously felt for Sam. Roy moved his hand to push Sam who smacked it away with ease.

"You know you're crazy right?" Roy asked with a continued stupid grin on his face.

"Yeah? You ever hunt a wen …," Sam demanded, cut off when Dean shoved him back and out of the forming fighting ring.

"Roy!" Hailey yelled with desperation to cool the situation.

"Chill out," Dean advised, a hand holding Sam back.

"Stop; stop it. Just everybody stop," Hailey said, moving into the midst and pulling Roy back. The same grin remained on his face that he got to Sam and I grinded my fingernails into my palm to keep from punching it off him. "Look, Tommy might still be alive, and I'm not leaving here without him." Dean stared at her for a moment before turning back to a still fuming Sam.

"It's getting late," he observed, turning back. "This thing is a good hunter in the day, but an unbelievable hunter at night." Hailey visibly swallowed. "We'll never beat it, not in the dark. We need to settle in and protect ourselves." He moved past Hailey, who followed his movements with growing determination and fear.

"How?" She questioned.

I scrapped the rock against the other, the grinding surfaces rasping together. I gritted my teeth, the noise aching on my head which pounded with everyone's thoughts. The scent of fear was in the air, unease and skittishness setting everyone on edge. Except for Roy, he remained –and would always remain – smugly stupid. I switched the rock to my other hand and flipped my loosening braid over my shoulder. This would be easier if … I glanced up at everyone else. Ben and Hailey were hovered next to the makeshift fire pit, heads bowed together as they waited for the fire. Roy was pacing on the other side of the site, Dean somewhere in the dirt behind me drawing shapes in the dirt. Sam wasn't within my eyesight and I shifted closer to the wood and lowered my hand to it. I took a deep breath and let the frustration and unease channel through the blood in my arm. It laced comfortingly, a release of unfortunate emotion and flame travelled through my fingers to the wood. It caught quickly and sparked into life. I smiled with satisfaction, Hailey and Ben also visibly relieved and moving closer.

"What did you just do?" Sam demanded and I looked up to see him quickly stand, confusion written into the features of his face. Shit.

"I started a fire," I assured him, swallowing to keep down the knowledge that I was caught.

"How?" He asked his hand out to gesture to the flames. I looked over at them and at Hailey and Ben who also looked confused, thankfully unsure what he was talking about. I glanced back over.

"With rocks," I said, holding the two of them up as evidence. "It's not a new method. Men have used it for years before the next invention of making fire was created. Matches." His face fell with annoyance as he stared at me, waiting for me to give up and admit. I stared back, not backing down and strangely mesmerized by the color of his eyes. They were hazel, almost green with a depth to them that was unsettling. He sighed, accepting my denial and moved away. I dropped my own eyes, feeling overheated.

"One more time that's …?" Hailey asked, moving away from the tense conversation and speaking to Dean who moved closer into the circle, drawing various shapes in the dirt.

"Anasazi symbols. It's for protection," Dean patiently explained. "The wendigo can't cross them." Roy laughed, his gun balanced on his shoulder with an assumed threatening air.

"Nobody likes a skeptic, Roy," Dean sighed. He walked over to where Sam sat in the shadows and sat next to him. In the dark they made an oddly shaped formation that had an almost unnatural quality to it. Sam tapped a stick against the earth and glanced over at me. I stared back, the flames of the fire reflecting in his eyes and making them sparkle. I pressed my lips together and shifted closer to Hailey and Ben who were huddled over the flames.

"You guys alright?" I asked, desperate to distract myself. Ben shook his head silently.

"Not really," Hailey admitted with an uneasy smile. She looked at me for reassurance and I was at a loss to give her any. I reached to my ankle and slid out the knife, the cool metal comforting in my hand. I turned it over in my hands, the edge capturing the light with a glint. Hailey watched it nervously, swallowing. I looked up at her, the tip digging into my finger.

"It'll be okay," I attempted, the false words on my tongue feeling strange. She nodded, for some reason believing me. It might have had something to do with the knife in my hand.

"Help me!" A broken voice from the darkness cried. Sam and Dean stood in the dark and Dean took a flashlight out of his pocket and shone its ray into the dark. Hailey and Ben both stood, Ben nervously grabbing onto my sleeve. "Please! Help!" Dean cocked a gun, standing almost outside the circle with a wary posture. I gripped the knife painfully in my hand, the ridges of the hand making its mark on my palm. Sam shone his light through the trees, moving so the ray weakly travelled.

"He's trying to draw us out," Dean explained as another cry broke the tense silence. "Just stay cool, stay put."

"Inside the magic circle?' Roy sarcastically commented, his gun pointed skyward. Not a useful place to aim it, unless wendigo also meant giant bird.

"Help! Help Me!" A growl followed the noise and Hailey jumped somewhat with a whimper, Ben's grip tightening on my arm and leaving marks.

"Okay that's no grizzly," Roy observed, his gun now pointed to the darkness. Well, no duh.

"It's okay," Hailey nervously assured Ben. "You'll be alright, I promise." Her words meant to come out as a comfort but instead voiced a question. A growl and claw at the leaves sounded behind us and Hailey screamed, knocking backwards into me. I quickly dropped my hand with the knife, least I end up stabbing her in the back.

"It's here," Sam confirmed, his light continuing its full spin of the trees. The sound travelled like a knife through the air, spinning me dizzy. I swallowed, my heart pounding against my ribs. The anticipation was always the worst part. The sound paused in a thicket and Roy fired, the branches collapsing over where the bullet vanished. The sound occurred again, angrier and moved more violently and Roy shot again, the noises echoing in the otherwise silent air.

"I hit it!" Roy declared and rushed into where he shot. The pressure of the anticipation snapped me and I rushed after him, snapping past Sam and Dean as I went.

"Kate!" Sam's voice called out and footsteps thudded behind me. I shoved aside branches and various thoughts in my mind of what the dark could produce. The situation screamed of déjà vu, a parallel moment of me tearing through trees breathless and sobbing. Except now I wasn't sobbing, now I was rushing after Roy to make sure the Wendigo didn't kill him before I got the chance. The flashlight danced behind me, its light disorienting.

"It's over here! It's in the tree!" Roy's voice called from ahead of me, muffled by the darkness and trees. A loud growl echoed from where he was standing, a sickening crunch following.

"Kate! Roy!" Deans voiced sounded from behind me, his voice become more desperate. I stumbled to a stop, my legs aching with exhaustion that gripped heavily at my knees. The light caressed over my form and something collided with my back. Sam stood against me, a hand holding my arm to keep me from moving. I could feel his breath and heartbeat against me and with the skin on skin contact I felt a rush of emotions and thoughts burst through like juice from a fruit. Fear, frustration, sadness, desperation, a girl's name; Jess, Dean, Dad, hunting … I swallowed hard with the impact as Dean and Sam stood perfectly still to listen for anything else. Our own breathing seemed to crawl under my skin with twisted thoughts of what could be out there. The silence around the breaths was suffocating, pushing down on me relentless as I scanned the darkness. Roy was gone.

"I don't … I mean these things aren't supposed to be real," Hailey attempted, kneeling on the ground with her fingers grasping at the dirt, searching for some sort of way to reassure herself that there was still normalcy in the world. I adjusted my back against the tree, my arms across my chest as the once innocent world that Hailey and Ben knew crumbled around them. Welcome to my world, leave your shoes at the door.

"I wish I could tell you different," Dean apologized, racking his fingers over the claw marks in the tree. He walked between the two of them, Ben pulling at his jeans with his head bowed.

"How do we know it's not out there watching us?" Hailey wondering nervously, scanning the trees for any sign.

"We don't," Dean bluntly said, knelt in front of her with a stick in his hands. "But we're safe for now."

"How do you know about this stuff?" Hailey curiously asked, pulling her jacket more closely around her.

"Kind of runs in the family," Dean shrugged. Hunters. He stood again and Sam walked from wherever he was in the trees with a deep breath.

"Hey," he said and Hailey quickly stood, wiping imprinted dirt from her knees. He looked over at me and I pushed myself away from the tree and back into the circle. "So we've got half a chance in the daylight. And I, for one, … want to kill this evil son of a bitch."

"Well hell, you know I'm in," Dean said with approval and growing enthusiasm.

"Wendigo is an Indian word …," Sam explained, tapping his pencil against a makeshift stick figure in the journal he held.

"It means evil that devours," I continued for him, leaning closer to try and see the writing beneath. Sam stared down at me in surprise, momentarily taken back by my ability to know that information.

"Uh … they're hundreds of years old," Dean recovered, also surprised. "Each one was once a man. Sometimes an Indian, other times a frontiersman or a miner or a hunter."

"How does a man turn into one of those things?" Hailey asked in barely disguised disgust and horror.

"Well it's always the same," Dean explained, a red canister in his hands. "During some harsh winter a guy finds himself starving, cut off from supplies or help. Becomes a cannibal to survive, eating other members of his tribe or camp."

"Like the Donnor party," Ben quietly interjected.

"Cultures all over the world believe that eating human flesh gives a person certain abilities. Speed, strength, immortality," Sam continued, his tone suggesting that we were in a classroom for supernatural creatures with him as the teacher.

"If you eat enough of it, over years, you become this less than human thing. You're always hungry," Dean carried on, assisting Sam with his "teachings."

"So if that's true, how can Tommy still be alive?" Hailey carefully asked.

"You're not going to like it," Dean warned.

"Tell me," Hailey said, forcefully.

"More than anything, a wendigo knows how to last long winters without food," Dean eased in, glancing between Ben and Hailey to make sure that they were both hearing. I apparently didn't count. "It hibernates for years at a time, but when it's awake it keeps its victims alive. It uh, stores them, so it can feed whenever it wants." Hailey glanced over at Ben who looked gradually more nauseated. "If your brothers alive it's keeping him somewhere dark, hidden and safe. We gotta track it back there."

"And then how do we stop it?" Hailey asked with growing determination.

"Well …," Dean started with a small chuckle. "…Guns are useless so are knives." He looked over at me before back at Hailey. "Basically, we gotta torch the sucker." He held up a rag and canister – apparently lighter fluid – to illustrate his point.

I pushed past a branch, the ends of it smoking with the controlled heat I kept coursing through my hand. If we were going to – as Dean so maturely put it – torch this sucker then I had to be ready at a seconds notice. Dean walked ahead of me, canister tightly gripped in his hand with his eyes searching. Wonder what would happen if I were to touch his skin. What emotions and thoughts would I feel, what crucial aspects of his mind would dig its way to the surface? I passed by a tree, its bark rent with blood and claw marks.

"Dean!" Sam called from ahead and Dean jogged up to him. Rays of light gleamed down from spaces in the leaves, illuminating the eerie sight of numerous obvious claw marks on the trees. Blood had sunk into the grooves and gave off a horror movie vibe. A growl ripped through the air and bushes, a nearly invisible shape passing through them. It snarled again on the other side of us and I felt my hand start to pulse with the pressure of keeping the fire at bay. Ben trembled next to me, his skin gleaming with cold sweat. I leaned back with my un-pulsing hand and gripped his wrist to assure him that he was safe. He gripped back painfully. The sound of heavy pitter patter echoed behind me and I turned – Ben swinging to follow – to see tiny dark droplets of red splattering Hailey's shoulder. She slowly turned and looked up, letting out a scream. Something heavy dropped and she rolled away with desperation. Whatever fell hit the ground, a bundle of flesh, cloth and now useless smugness.

"You okay?" Sam asked, dropping next to her to help her up. Dean knelt next to the body of what used to be Roy, cuts and bruises decorating his visible skin. "You got it?"

"His neck's broke," Dean observed, looking up as the growls and snarls grew louder and more threatening. "Okay, run, run, run, run, go, go!" I took off, Bens hand dropping from mine and bolted through the trees. My heart pounded in my ears and chest making everything seem out of place and I pushed aside branches that seemed to all be directed at my height. Ben ran next to me, pale and shaking and his legs gave out beneath him as he skidded to a stop. I turned to dig my feet in and ran back to grab onto his arm and yank him back to his feet. Sam rushed back with us, grabbing his other arm and helping pull him up.

"Come on, I gotcha, I gotcha," Sam assured him, pushing off the ground and back into a run. Ben sprinted ahead of us, pushing off trees as he went. My breath stabbed needles into my sides as I slid over roots and earthly debris. Ben had disappeared ahead of me, only Sam's footprints next to me assuring me that I wasn't alone. A scream echoed ahead of me, Hailey's voice broken with terror.

"Hayley," I called, stopping on a mild hill, my breath clawing my throat raw. Sam stopped behind me panting, taking an exhausted breath ahead of me and grabbing something off the ground. I turned to him as he picked up the broken top of the lighter fluid bottle, the dirty cloth dangling from the neck. He spun around, the cloth following like a flag.

"Dean!" He yelled, his voice rough and deep in a way that broke in my chest.

"If it keeps its victims alive, why would it kill Roy?" I asked, trailing my fingers over the rough surface of the nearest tree.

"Honestly, I think because Roy shot at it, pissed it off," Sam explained, stepping over a lopsided fallen tree.

"He had a tendency of doing that," I mumbled, scanning the silent trees for anything out of place. Sam laughed slightly, looking down. I liked his laugh, it hurt to admit it but I did.

"So …," he said, easing into what had been mulling over in his mind for a while. "You going to tell me what happened last night?"  
>"What are you talking about?" I asked, playing dumb.<p>

"With the fire," he said, irritated that I hadn't picked up what he was asking.

"I already told you, I used rocks," I said, edging away from him slightly. He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me back. My hair snapped around as I faced him, suddenly aware of how tall he was.

"You going to stick with that lie?" He asked, head titled to look down at me.

"You going to stick with yours?" I asked, the feel of his hand on my arm alerting me that there was some secret lurking underneath his brooding attitude and floppy hair. Never trust a man with floppy hair.

"What lie?" He asked with an uneasy smirk.

"I don't know but everyone has one," I pointed out, keeping his stare to let him know that I wasn't backing down. His smile broadened somewhat and he shook his head in disbelief at me and dropped his hand from my arm. I looked away and kept walking, suddenly aware of everything. His face, his hair, his eyes, his lips … Everything.

"Then how did you know about the wendigo?" He asked, not backing down from trying to piece me together. Good luck to him, too many pieces were missing to achieve anything but a jagged half finished image.

"My dad," I explained, pushing aside a thorny branch.

"How'd your dad know?" He wondered, his shadow making a distorted shape over me.

"He was a hunter," I said, glancing back at him. His eyes were lowered to watch me with interest and intrigue.

"Was?" He asked, picking up on the past tense.

"Yeah," I said and stopped, watching him. We stared at each other for a moment, him waiting for me to explain and me waiting for him to give up on the fact that I wouldn't. His eyes were green. Definitely green.

'This is the point where you explain the "was"," He pointed out.

"I don't know everything about you, I'm not going to tell you about me," I informed him, arms crossed over my chest challenging.

"Alright …," he said, picking up on the "game". "How about I tell you something about me and then you tell me something about you."

"Okay," I said, shifting my hair back from my face. The strands grazed a jagged scar that curled over my shoulder. That wasn't one of the things I'd explain.

"Okay …," he said, searching through his mind for something that wouldn't give too much of him away. "My dad's a hunter."

"I already knew that," I smiled, relieved that it was something I already knew and thus of no worth. "So it doesn't count." He stared at me in incredulity for a moment before his eyes focused on something next to me.

"What's that?" He asked and knelt in front of me over several small colorful shapes in the dirt. He rolled them over in his fingers.

"They went this way," He said looking out at me. He laughed slightly, looking back down at their misshapen shape. "Better then bread crumbs." He stood up again and walked after the warped path. The bright candy stood out in the cold dirt and amongst the fallen branches. They travelled down a small hill, multiple roots creating makeshift steps. Sam slid down it and turned, offering his hand. I ignored it and stumbled down and half jogged at the bottom to keep my footing. I brushed through the trees and saw a wooden door nailed into the hill like an afterthought. The boards were badly placed and were falling apart, a sign on the front that read: "Warning! Danger! Do Not Enter. Extremely Toxic Material." I peered through the hole in its front, just large enough to admit me through. And maybe Sam if he scrunched himself up first. I looked back at him and he shrugged with a "worth a shot" look. I set my hand on the splintered wood and he pulled me back somewhat.

"I'll go in first," he said with a protective, testosterone feel. Really? I was the one with a hunting knife and ability to kill the wendigo with my bare hands and he wanted to go first? I rolled my eyes and shouldered my way through. It was cold inside, the air misty and ghostly with the spots of light from the door illuminating a track disappearing into the mine. Sam grunted as he squeezed his way through and stood behind me, blocking the light. A narrow light clicked on and he held out the flashlight in front of him. I started walking, the broken tracks uneven under my feet as he followed, pushing past me somewhat to get in front. He shone his light over the cave walls, their damp sides rough and crude. Our breath and footsteps were loud, echoing in the narrow space. A growl rumbled ahead of us and Sam grabbed onto my shirt – very nearly groping me – and pulled me into a shallow alcove in the wall. The light switched off as he pressed against the wall, his arm bumping mine. I held my breath, the force of it making my head dizzy. The growl continued with the sound of someone with too much phlegm. I peered around the edge and saw a too bony figure, framed by the light at the end of the tunnel. He moved threateningly with the air of someone with more strength then it appeared. Sam spun and snapped a hand over my mouth and pushed me back into shadows. He looked at me with a deliberate look reading "don't make a sound." His hand tasted dirty on my lips and I resisted the urge to bite him. Though that wouldn't taste much better. The growling faded somewhat and he lowered his hand, still staring. He turned away and moved out of where we hid and I followed, wiping my mouth on the back of my arm. He moved down another path and I followed, his light making a weak yet comforting reappearance. The _Jaws _theme song played through my head as the boards beneath us creaked. I paused, the sound more of a whine and turned to Sam as the floor crashed beneath me. Boards and dust fell with me as my stomach dropped and I hit the ground hard, rolling down with rocks scrapping my back as my shirt rode up. Sam fell next to me with a groan and I coughed, dust coating my throat and pain spiking a sting up my spine.

"You okay?" He groaned, sitting up with his own shirt riding up to expose his stomach.

"Just peachy," I grunted and twisted to try and sit up, everything feeling bruised. Blank faces met my eyes, dozens of cracked skulls pilled in front of me with creepy grins. I swallowed hard, feeling somewhat sick and pushed myself to my feet. Sam stood next to me, staring down at the skulls before looking up. I followed his gaze and saw Dean, Hailey and Ben hanging from their wrists to the ceiling. Relief broke in me and I rushed over, chipped remains of a skull sliding under my feet. Sam followed, hurrying to Dean's side.

"Ben?" I asked, and cupped his face. He was cold, but still breathing, a pulse strong under my fingers. "Ben?" His eyes opened slightly, fear and pain clouding over them.

"Kat?" He asked thickly. I stood higher on the rocks and gripped the roots that bound his wrists. I breathed deeply and smoke sparked from my hands and snapped the rope. He fell slightly, landing on the rocks and shaking his head with a dazed look. I walked over to Hailey and gripped the rope holding her until it snapped as well. She slumped against me and Ben stumbled over, pulling at the fraying binds.

"Hailey?" I asked, cupping her face as well. She was also cold but still alive, strength and determination still beating under the surface. She opened her eyes and coughed.

"You alright?" Sam asked Dean, pulling him over to the wall.

"Yeah," Dean grunted with a pained breath. Hailey looked past me and gave a startled gasp, quickly standing and holding onto me to keep from falling. I looked behind me and saw Tommy hanging in the corner with fading light barely illuminating him. I also stood and made my way over his posture limp in his binds. Hailey sniffed and reached out for him before pulling back, unsure whether to touch him to find out if he was dead.

"Tommy," she gasped, tears streaking her dirty face with clean paths. She finally reached for him, her trembling hand touching the side of his face. He gasped violently and his head jerked up, Hailey falling back with a scream. She reached for him again, her fingers grasping at him desperately.

"Cut him down," she forcefully told Sam. I walked behind Tommy, my knife in my hand and sliced it across the binds. Wasn't safe to use fire where everyone could see. Tommy collapsed against me and I fell back to the rocks. He sprawled across my lap, breathless with relief.

"Hailey," he breathed, attempting a smile at her. "Ben." He looked up at me and I ignored the rock stabbing me in the ass made worse by his weight.

"Kate," he murmured and lifted an exhausted hand to touch my face. What was I supposed to be feeling in this moment? Relief? Something romantic?

"Hi," I simply said which made him smile like he expected the answer.

"We're going to get you home," Hailey assured him, breaking us from out "almost moment."

"What do we have to fight it?" Sam asked, looking over at Dean who was searching the ground for some sort of weapon.

"Nothing," Dean sighed, throwing a rock against the ground with frustration.

"Alright then we better out run it," Sam calmly said. Ben and Hailey looked at each other with unease, Tommy's eyes closed with exhaustion.

Ben, Hailey limped with Tommy between them, his arms thrown over their shoulders. Sam slid in between them and the wall, getting ahead to stand next to me. I surveyed the dark tunnel, the light making everything more mysterious rather than comforting. Dean walked on the other side of me, bent slightly with obvious pain. A growl echoed ahead and everyone froze, tense with fear.

"Looks like someone's home for supper," Dean calmly stated.

"We'll never outrun it," Hailey said with an edge to her voice. Dean turned back to her, the dirt on his face framing it and making him look younger. Hailey adjusted Tommy's arm and Dean glanced up at Sam and then at me. I didn't have to make physical contact to know whatever he was thinking was incredibly stupid.

"You thinking, what I'm thinking?" Dean wondered, glancing back at Sam. If he was thinking that he was incredibly stupid and careless then yes, we were both thinking the same thing.

"Yeah I think so," Sam said, his eyes darting around warily.

"Alright, listen to me …," Dean said, moving closer to the entrance and looking back. "Stay with Sam, he's going get you out of here?"

"What are you going to do?" Hailey worriedly asked.

"You know you're incredibly stupid, right?" I demanded, knowing his plan without him having to voice it. He turned to me and winked before hurrying off.

"Chow time you freaky bastard!" He yelled into the dark. "Yeah that's right, bring it on baby. I taste good." He disappeared from sight, waving an arm behind him to gesture at us to go.

"Alright, come on. Hurry!" Said Sam, moving in front with a protective stance. Ben, Hailey and Tommy followed but I dropped back, moving backwards into the shadows behind them. No way could Dean take him out, he was going to get himself killed. I shuffled backwards, the light sketching my misshapen shadow over the walls. Dean's voice continued to call muffled and I moved away from it, a hand on the wall to keep my footing. Had to find the wendigo first. I breathed deeply, all my energy flowing and lacing through my arm where it started to heat. Keep steady; don't overheat not until I got close. Could I control it from a distance? It was hard but not impossible. I'd done it before … with unsavory results but I had done it.

"Kate?" a voice distantly called, faded by the walls and the very air that seemed dead. I turned down another passageway, straining my ears for anything that growled.

"Hey! Hey you want some white meat bitch?" Dean yelled his voice closer now. "I'm right here." Running into him wouldn't be a good idea. I doubled back, jogging somewhat, sweat starting to stick to my skin in contrast to the cold air. Come on, where are you? Where are you, you sick bastard? Growling sounded as if in response to my thoughts. I walked more quietly, tensed to hear where it was coming from.

"Sam!" Hailey's voice called and a pit twisted itself into my stomach. Touch a floppy strand of hair on that head and the wendigo was going to burn extra crispy. The yells were louder now, a scream and a rough growl. I was getting closer. I breathed more deeply, more quickly, my hand starting to burn. I turned and saw its wrinkled, twisted form standing in my path, its head reared back. In front of him, pressed against the wall were Sam, Tommy, Hailey and Ben with Sam protectively in front. Man it was an ugly son of a bitch.

"Hey!" I yelled and it spun, its bulging eyes staring angrily. I held out my arm and felt an explosion of energy shoot through my arm and numb it. Fire burst from my fingers with force, lacing through the air and hitting him squarely in the chest. He threw back his head and screamed, the flames devouring his skin and I dropped my hand still smoking. The force exhausted me and I nearly fell to the side, dizzy and nauseated. The fire clawed at him and torn him down from the insides as he howled. The body collapsed and landed in a heap like burning and curling paper. Ben and Hailey stared at it in horror but Sam's eyes were on me. He saw. He knew. He swallowed hard, still staring and I turned to see Dean in the passageway next to me. He had also seen. I turned away and back down at the crisp still smoldering on the ground.

I adjusted the back strap over my shoulder the weight light but uncomfortable. Most people with all their life possessions had a few dozen suitcases with a truck to boot. I had a half empty backpack. A few clothes, a cell phone, an old photo … nothing else. Nothing but memories and scars to remind me that I had a past. I stepped around the side of the police station and saw cop cars and an ambulance with flashing lights swirling. Hailey was walking slowly by Dean, her hands playing with each other as she did when she was nervous. I paused and he leaned against the front as they talked. A doctor walked over to her and said a few words before moving back to the ambulance door. Hailey turned back to Dean and leaned in, kissing him. Go Hailey. She pulled away and spotted me, standing in the shadows. She smiled slightly and I pulled at the strap so that she could see the bag. Her smile faded and she knew. I never was a part of the family; I was always just a boarder, someone passing through. In a month, maybe even a week … they would forget about me. Everyone did eventually. She nodded, accepting it and turned away with tearful eyes. I walked out of the shadows and over where Dean and Sam stood next to the Impala. I took a deep breath for confidence and continued walking until I was close enough to touch. They looked up.

"Hey, aren't you going with Hailey?" Dean asked, nodding to the departing ambulance.

"No, I'm not," I said and took another deep breath, nervous everywhere. "I'm hopefully going with you guys." They both gaped at me and under any other circumstances I would have found it funny.

"What?" Sam demanded in shock.

"Look, I don't belong here. I'm a waitress at a crummy bar in an even worse town going nowhere," I started, pausing to see if I needed more. They continued to stare. Obviously I did. "Look I don't take up much room; I don't have a lot of belongings. I'll pay for my own room; I'll pay for gas, food … you guys know I'm not a damsel in distress so no need to look out for me. All I'm asking is to come with you because … let's face it you guys aren't who you say you are and neither am I."

"The fire …," Sam started, bringing us back to our earlier topic. "You did that."

"Yes," I admitted, lying wouldn't help me at the moment. "Not only that I can … read people." Their faces changed from shock to confusion.

"Read people?" Dean asked, face scrunched up as he tried to process the phrase.

"Yeah," I said, pulling at my bag strap. "I can tell that you …" I gestured at Dean. "…want me to come because you think you have a chance with me. Which you don't. And you …" I turned to Sam. "… You're harder to read but I can assume that you're a little divided on my offer." He glanced at Dean, surprised that I had been able to read his thoughts.

"I don't belong here," I continued. "I'm a freak with a knife in a town where freaks with knives don't belong. Plus …" I trailed off, unsure whether to add this point. "I totally saved your asses back there." Dean smiled slightly and looked over at Sam who still looked divided. I crossed my fingers behind me.

"Cover the next gas tab?" Dean asked, turning back to me. Relief choked me and I resisted the urge to grin.

"Sure," I said, allowing a small smile instead. He nodded and climbed off the hood and around to the driver seat. Sam sighed and walked around to the passenger side and held open the door. Popcorn seemed to be popping inside me with excitement and I walked over and ducked into the car and sliding behind the seat. I settled into the back, swinging my bag beside me. Dean climbed into the front as Sam did and the two of them glanced at each other for a moment. A look that said "what have we gotten ourselves into." Dean looked away and started the ignition, a blast of rock music coming on. I settled more comfortably as the Impala roared to life and out of the parking lot.


	3. 103 Dead in the Water

Disclaimer: I do not own anything, it belongs purely to the geniuses of Eric Kripke, Sera Gamble and everyone else involved with the show.

I side stepped a young woman going into the bathroom, her heavy scent of perfume almost knocking me over with the slam of her thoughts. Frustration, sex appeal, boredom, shoes, makeup, boys … almost every shallow thought invented carving their mark into her brain. Or the sides of her mind, I had low hopes for the size of her brain. I twisted back to walk properly, the clatter and noise of the restaurant returning into my ears with a reminder of my different environment. Dean was seated at the bar at the front, his body turned towards Sam with an irritation and frustration written into his body posture and face. Sam was hunched over the bar, his head turned to Dean with the same appearance detailing him. Another reminder of my different environment, different companions to match. Our waitress walked around them, her hips perfectly swiveled to draw a man into a hypnotized stare. Dean's gaze followed her with interest, drawing the exact reaction she was looking for.

"Excuse me," she said, brushing past me. Her arm grazed mine and I was hit with the slam of her thoughts. Money, money, money and … more money. Poor Dean, she just wanted more tips. I walked over, not one hundred percent used to the idea of sitting with people who wouldn't ignore me as soon as I sat down.

"Alright, Lake Manitoc," Sam said, shifting the bill closer to him so that he could see the price. "Hey," said Dean, noticing me as I sat down in the spindly chair anchored into the floor. Whether or not it was to keep the chair standing and keep someone from stealing it was uncertain. "What took you so long?"

"Nothing," I said, scrapping the remains of the egg onto a fork and eating it. It was overly spiced, the barest remembrance of vegetable giving it more flavor.

"You okay?" Sam asked with a touch of concern. I looked up at him, his hands crossed in front of him and his eyes tender with what I wasn't used to receiving from people. It was unsettling, the way his gaze was like a tender kiss to the skin.

"Yeah," I said with a harder edge of my voice to suggest that he drop it. He sighed slightly, his shoulders giving out as he recognized the look I had given him too often in the last week as a sign that he wasn't going to learn anything of importance about me.

"Thanks for not leaving without me," I said, scrapping up the last of the eggs, its leftovers smeared like blood across the plate.

"Nah, we wouldn't do that," Dean insisted, shifting the bill closer to him and having it shift over the numerous pen marked newspapers scattered over the table. "Besides, if we did … then I'd have nothing pretty to look at." He smiled at me with confidence, convinced that I was the kind of girl to have my knees melted by it. I tossed the fork back onto the plate with an unhealthy clatter.

"Yeah because looking in the mirror doesn't help," I responded dryly, turning the newspaper towards me so I could scan the pictures and articles detailing them. Sam laughed shortly and I tried not to cringe at how sweet on the ears it felt.

"So what are we looking at?" I asked, shifting better in the seat with its edges perfectly smoothed down to make a grip on it a near impossibility. Plastic fish and un-sittable seats … classy place.

"Sophie Carlton drowned last week," Sam said, drawing attention away from Dean's awkward and puzzled silence and to the newspaper in front of me. "She is the third drowning in a year and none of the bodies have ever been found." He leaned closer to me to point out the grainy photo of a smiling girl. His shoulder brushed mine and I was hit with a smell of faded cologne and another mixture to the scent that was beginning to label itself as his own. It was slightly dizzying.

"Alrighty," I nodded and stood up, dropping the short distance it was to the ground. "Lake Manitoc it is." I dug through my back pocket, fingering over the fraying bills that had spent the last year of my life stored in a plastic bag under my bed. An inlaid box would have been more clichéd and mysterious but a plastic bag was more accessible. Dean sighed and reached for his wallet, lazily fingering the bills scrunched inside but I tossed my own bills onto the table, flaring them out like a poorly constructed paper fan. Beating him to the punch.

"I'm a modern woman," I explained to his surprised look as the waitress walked over, her "perfected" swivel of the hips still in place. Must be exhausting to put that much movement into your ass. She gathered the bills and shot Dean a seductive look before turning back to the kitchen, perfectly aware that he continued to watch her. I suppressed a smile of amusement, pulling my jacket and backpack over my shoulders. I walked over next to him and slung my arm over his shoulders and causing him to jerk in slight surprise.

"Dude, she just wants a bigger tip," I assured him, my fingers grazing his neck and allowing me to take note of his confusion and disappointment. His facial expression followed his thoughts and I smiled at them before withdrawing my arm and walking away.

The Impala roared down the road, wind blasting through the partially open windows and playing with my hair in a teasing manner. Dean leaned back in the front seat, his arm braced over the steering wheel watching the road with determined concentration. Sam sat next to him, eyes taking in the gradually more manicured scenery outside the windows. I shifted in the back seat, observing the passing grass and trees outside, glimpses of water painting their way through the green. A sign broke free of the repetitive scenery the words: Welcome to Lake Manitoc, WI crudely illustrated into the wood. Lake Manitoc Wisconsin. Last week I had been in Lost Creek Colorado and now I was in Wisconsin. The change almost gave me whiplash, the knowledge that the once mundane and ordinary details of my life could be so easily moved out of place to incorporate bigger more acceptable ones. Acceptable to me at least. Hunting monsters, sleeping in motels and constantly carrying a knife on my ankle were probably not considered acceptable to others. The water blended back into trees with sunlight taking their turn shining through the leaves with the road becoming rougher under the wheels. A dark green peeling cabin poked its way through in front of us, a dark red roof sweeping down to cover the porch in front. The Impala slowed and whined to a stop as Dean turned off the engine, keys rattling. I unbuckled my seat belt and slid to the door, pulling it open and stepping onto the blanketed forest floor. It was brisk out, a chill in the air that nipped and bit in all the wrong ways. I turned to the house, walking around the Impalas frame to the front where Dean and Sam were walking, their longer legs propelling them faster than mine could. I jogged slightly, cursing genetics with granting me short stature. The steps creaked beneath us and shifted with the suggestion of poor care. Dean pressed closer to the door and rapped his knuckles against the frame. Mix matched furniture was glimpsed through the panes of glass with a somber country-esque appearance to it. Footsteps announced themselves and a bulky man about my age opened the door, his face written with exhaustion and hurt that was bone deep.

"Will Carlton?" Dean asked the door opening further and screeching in protest.

"Yeah that's right," he answered, scanning the three of us with confusion and curiosity.

"I'm Agent Ford; this is Agent Hamill and Johnson," Dean introduced, mildly pointing us out. Apparently I was Johnson. "We're with the U.S Wildlife Service."

The water lapped lazily against the beach, the waves gently overcoming each other to give birth to the next. I stepped over the rock littered earth that led into the sand, pulling my jacket more closely around me. I could probably heat myself up a lot easier but the chance of bursting into flame was a little too high a risk.

"She was about a hundred yards out," Will explained, hands tucked deep into his pockets for warmth, his chin gesturing towards the nearly silent waves. "That's where she got dragged down."

"Are you sure she didn't just drown?" I asked, tugging my arms deeper into my sleeves. Not that that did a lot of good, considering the fact that I was wearing Jean. A fabric not known for generating heat.

"Yeah, she was a varsity swimmer," he explained, a look of sad pride on his face. "She practically grew up in that lake. She was as safe out there as she was in her own bathtub." Dean nodded, turning to gaze out at the lake with interest.

"So no splashing? No signs of distress?' Sam asked curiously, his face darkened with concern and brooding.

"No, that's what I'm telling you," Will answered in sad exasperation.

"Did you see any shadows in the water? Maybe some dark shape beneath the surface?" Sam gently pressed.

"No. Again, she was really far out there," Will replied, arms crossed over his chest for warmth.

"You ever see any strange tracks by the shoreline?" Dean asked curiously.

"No, never," said Will, catching on to something amiss and becoming suspicious. "Why? What do you thinks out there?" His tone quickly turning from sad exhaustion into alive fear.

"We'll let you know as soon as we do," Dean explained, sensing Wills rising suspicion and backing off before it grew into full shape. He pressed lightly on my lower back as a silent gesture to move back to the car. I pushed off his hand slightly, propelling myself a few steps ahead.

"What about your father?" Sam quietly asked, Dean and me turning at his question. "Can we talk to him?" Will turned back to look at his father, sitting motionlessly on a bench on the dock. He turned back again sad and defeated.

"Look, if you don't mind, I mean … he didn't see anything and he's kind of been through a lot," he explained, his eyes crestfallen.

"We understand," Sam kindly said and Will nodded in thanks.

"Now, I'm sorry, but what does the Wildlife Service care about an accidental drowning?" The sheriff asked, moving around the end of the counter and opening the swinging door doing a poor job of keeping people out from behind the desk. You'd think that people couldn't just go up and open it themselves.

"You sure it was accidental?" Sam asked, walking up beside him, his arms open with suggestion. "Will Carlton saw something grab his sister." The sheriff turned slightly, the roll of his eyes almost but not quite hidden

"Like what?" He asked as we stepped through the frame and into his office. "Here sit please." He gestured to the three mix matched chairs on the opposite side of his desk. Apparently nobody knew how to match furniture in this town. I settled into the middle seat, the hard frame awkwardly holding me and Dean and Sam on either side. "There are no indigenous carnivores in that lake. There's nothing even big enough to pull down a person, unless it was the Loch Ness monster." The last part he spoke with dirt dry humor.

"Yeah," Dean laughed slightly, turning to roll his eyes at me. "Right."

"Will Carlton was traumatized, and sometimes the mind plays tricks," he explained, leaning forward on his arms with an air of a teacher scolding children. "Still …" he sat down, his hands locked with attempted patience. "… We dragged the entire lake. We even ran a sonar sweep, just to be sure, and there was nothing down there." Sam watched him curiously, his hand lazily running over his face with thought.

"That's weird though," I said, leaning forward slightly and forcibly smoothing down the edges of my words, sharpened by a desire that I didn't want to acknowledge. "I mean … that's the third missing body this year." You'd think they'd notice the decrease in people.

"I know," he said with a mild edge to his voice as if hearing the suppressed edge in mine. "These are people from my town. These are people I care about." He turned to look at Sam and Dean, apparently not happy enough with me to look at me anymore.

"I know," Dean insisted kindly. The Sheriff sighed deeply, lifting his hands in defeat and leaning back in his chair.

"Anyway all this … it won't be a problem much longer," he spoke sadly, defeat and sadness heavy in his voice like he was being dragged down by it.

"What do you mean?" Dean asked curiously.

"Well the dam of course," the sheriff said, puzzled that we didn't already know this.

"Of course," Dean said, perking up with an attempt to sound like he knew what he was talking about. "The dam … It's uh … sprung a leak."

"It's falling apart," the sheriff said dryly, filling in the blanks for us. Dean nodded, pleased that he guessed at least within the ball park. "And the feds won't give us the grant to repair it, so they've opened the spillway. In another six months there won't be much of a lake. There won't be much of a town either. But as Federal Wildlife, you already knew that." He glanced between the three of us, testing.

"Exactly," Dean said, after a moment of obvious pause. A short rap echoed on the door.

"Sorry," a female voice apologized and I swiveled in my chair to follow the noise. A young woman – a few years older than me – stood in the doorway with softness in her being that had been written out of me years ago. "Am I interrupting? I can come back later." She made a move to the door to follow through with her offer.

"Gentlemen," the sheriff said standing and obviously forgetting that I was female. "This is my daughter." Sam, Dean and I also stood and I moved around the chaos of chairs.

"Pleasure to meet you," Dean said, sauntering over with a hand outstretched. "I'm Dean." He smiled the characteristic grin of his and she nervously returned it, shaking his hand.

"Andrea Bar. Hi," she replied, looking a little dazed.

"They're from the Wildlife Service about the lake," Sheriff explained.

"Oh," said Andrea quietly, a shadow seeming to pass over her. She looked at Sam searchingly before looking at me. Her eyes were dark; sad … a loss in them that still ate at her in the darkest and coldest of moments. Someone she loved had died. I knew the look well; it stared back at me whenever I looked into a mirror. A small boy suddenly walked from behind her, shoulder length red hair nearly covering his pale face.

"Oh hey there," Dean welcomed; his gaze turning away from the attractive woman to whom I assumed was her son. 'What's your name?" He didn't reply, only turned back around and left the room with dragging feet. Andrea apologetically glanced at us before following.

"His name is Lucas," the sheriff explained, Dean glancing at me and Sam with a curiosity to what he had done wrong. I glimpsed them still visible through the open door, Andrea kneeling before him with a box of crayons in his hand. A flash of raw memory tore at me, fingers poorly sketching a sunny scene, the drawing next splattered with blood.

"Is he okay?" Sam warmly asked, his voice snapping me out of the cold and fragmented past.

"My grandsons been through a lot," sheriff sadly explained. "We all have." He sighed, walking around his desk and to the doorway. "Well, if there's anything else I can do for you, please let me know."

"Thanks," Dean responded and the sheriff gave him a short pat on the back as he walked out the door. He quickly dropped his hand as I walked out, Sam close on my heels.

"You know now that you mention it," Dean began, passing Andrea and a thought crossing his mind. "Could you point us in the direction of a reasonable priced hotel?" He started directed toward the sheriff but shifted his attention to Andrea halfway through, his point obvious that he wanted her assistance and not her fathers.

"Lakefront motel," Andrea kindly suggested. "Go around the corner, it's about two blocks south." Dean mouthed the words as if trying to remember and gestured behind him before turning back like he'd forgotten.

"Would you mind showing us?" He asked, his smile managing to be both flirtatious and apologetic at the same time. Sam glanced at me, rolling his eyes like he was used to this behavior and I barely allowed myself a smile back.

"You want me to walk you two blocks?" She asked in amused disbelief.

"Not if it's any trouble," Dean quickly insisted.

"I'm headed that way anyway," she admitted, turning back to her father. "I'll be back to pick Lucas at three." He smiled warmly in response and she kneeled down to Lucas's height. "We'll go to the park, okay sweetie?" She pressed her lips against his head, once again pulling me back to where I didn't want to go. A sweet, simple confession of love broken into a raw and agonized scream.

"So, cute kid," Dean attempted the quiet din of traffic in the background of his words.

"Thanks," Andrea politely replied, her words not welcoming or shutting off any more attempts of flirting. We stepped off the sidewalk and into the barely populated street, a lone car lazily passing us.

"Kids are the best, huh?" Dean tried again, a tad more desperate. I suppressed a laugh, a short burst of noise breaking from my lips. Dean turned to look at me; arms open with an innocent "what?" expression on his face. Sam shook his head and laughed, also amused by Deans attempts.

"Here it is," said Andrea stopping in front a motel, the sign "Lakefront Motel" clearly painted on the front. "Like I said two blocks."

"Thanks," said Sam appreciatively, hands tucked into his pockets.

"Must be hard with your sense of direction …," Andrea started, Dean shifting closer with a widening grin on his face at the idea that she had finally picked on his flirtations. "Never being able to find your way to a decent pick up line." She turned away and I let out a burst of laughter that bubbled its way through my resolve. Dean stood in utter disbelief, retracing his steps to see where he went wrong.

"Enjoy your stay," she called over her shoulder, a proud grin on her face.

"I like her," I announced, laughter still hovering on my lips and in my voice. Dean turned towards me, waiting for me to explain where he went wrong.

"Kids are the best?" Sam demanded in amusement. "You don't even like kids."

"I love kids," Dean insisted.

"Name three children that you even know," Sam challenged. Dean accepted the challenge, pulling his hand out of his pocket in preparation to count them off. He paused, frozen, digging through his mind. Sam waved him off and turned to the motel, Dean still stuck with his "thinking" expression. He turned in surprise to see Sam go and I turned as well, not willing to wait outside for however long it took for Dean to scrounge up three names.

"I'm thinking," he insisted, jogging to catch up with me.

"So there's three drowning victims this year," Sam stated, scanning his laptop screen with a concentrated expression. His was a great deal more believable then Deans. Dean didn't even have one, just an expression half way caught between hungry and horny.

"Any before that?" Dean asked, rummaging through his duffel bag and sorting through the clothes.

"Uh yeah … six more spread out over the past 35 years. Those bodies were never recovered either," Sam answered, clicking away on the keys and his eyes shifting as the images on the screen changed. "If there is something out there, it's picking up its pace." Something soft and worn hit me in the face and I glanced down to see Dean's shirt crumpled on my lap. The scent of it hovered around me and I glared up at him to see him smirking back and turning away to his bag again. I bunched it up in my hands and tossed it away from me and climbed off the mattress, debating smacking him upside the head.

"So what, we got a lake monster on the binge?" Dean wondered, still half laughing. I glanced down at the screen, the newspaper clippings decorating the monitor and spun back to face Dean and smacking him in the back of the head. He flinched slightly but laughed as I dropped my hand, aware that I hadn't hit him as hard as I usually would have.

"This whole lake monster theory …," Sam said shaking his head, unaware of what was going on behind him. "…It bugs me."

"Why?" I asked and walked over and leaning on the back of his chair. He leaned back slightly and his shoulders pressed against my hands, a warm chill going through me and making me pry my hands free.

"Loch Ness, uh Lake Champlain …," Sam continued, once again oblivious to what was going on around him. "There are literally hundreds of eye witness accounts, but here, almost nothing. Whatever it is out there, no one's living to talk about it." I let his voice fade somewhat, scanning the list of names on the article he brought up.

"Wait," I said, leaning over his shoulder and pointing to a name that stood out. My arm grazed his shoulder and I was once again rewarded with a shiver. "Bar, Christopher Bar. Where have I heard that name before?"

"Christopher Bar," Sam repeated, shifting slightly in his chair and alternating between becoming closer and farther away from me. "The victim in May." He clicked a link, his shoulder and neck now almost perfectly shaped into fitting my side. The page popped up and an image of Lucas from the police station appeared with it, his hair wet and a towel tightly wrapped around him. "Oh … Christopher Bar was Andrea's husband. Lucas's father. Apparently, he took Lucas out swimming. Lucas was on a floating wooden platform when Chris drowned, two hours before the kid got rescued." Something dark started to rise inside me, a mass of sickly memories and nightmares clawing at my skin and tearing down my resolve.

"Maybe we have an eye witness after all," Sam said regrettable, scratching the back of his head. Memories slashed in front of my vision, a heavy weight on my legs and chest, a sickening taste clogging my throat with bitterness and copper …

"No wonder that was so freaked out," Dean remarked sadly. "Watching one of your parents die isn't something you just get over." Screams tore at my ears, a giant release of weight off my chest, a pained choke and gasp at my lungs with the taste still burning and dripping down my throat … I jerked away from Sam's chair and turned to the door, screams pounding in my ears and distorting my vision.

"Kate?" One of them asked, noises blurring my ears and taking away my ability to tell them apart. I gripped the door handle tightly and shoved it open, children's laughter and a breeze teasing my senses as I slammed it shut behind me.

I leaned against the Impala bumper, eyes painfully focused on the paved ground. Blood smeared upon it, finger marks clawed through and dragged before it was swept away; reminding me that it was just a memory. A broken part of the past that wouldn't go away no matter how far down I pushed it. Footsteps shifted in the gravel and dirt and I looked up to see Sam walking over, his hands tucked into his pockets and causing the bottom half of his jacket to curl and fold slightly. I swallowed hard, forcing back down the blood, gore and screams, the memories going down like blunt knives.

"Hey," he said, stopping beside me and nearly encompassing me in his shadow. I swallowed again, the taste of blood almost physically present on my tongue.

"Hey," I responded, fingers dug deep into my own pockets to give off the appearance that I was confident and self assured. He scanned me in a concerned way, taking in whatever tiny detail I hadn't been able to hide to piece together the idea that something was wrong.

"You alright?" He asked, brow furrowed with worry. I stared back at him, eyes locked with his, hoping that he would drop his eyes and accept the lie that I was projecting.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I insisted, the words pushed between my clenched teeth. His eyes remained focused on my face, darting back and forth carefully like he was studying me. A gentle shiver rolled through me under his gaze.

"What?" I demanded, the tender look in his eyes and what it did to me sharpening the nerves and edges inside me.

"Nothing, just …," he trailed off and shook his head slightly in disbelieving wonder. "…Just trying to figure you out." Amusement touched me deeply and pulled at my lips like tiny needles, tugging and pulling to form a somewhat pained smile. But a smile nonetheless.

"And how's that working out for you?" I asked, shifting my back against the bumper and re-crossing my legs to ease my weight.

"Not great," he admitted and laughed with shy embarrassment, kicking at a rock on the ground and causing it to roll awkwardly over the uneven pavement. He walked over and leaned against the car next to me with a sigh, his feet stretching farther than mine despite me leaning forward more on the edge.

"So where are your parents?" He curiously asked, turning towards me with his fingers loosely fastened together. The images returned, a flash of screams tearing at each other with blood slashing over my vision. I blinked rapidly to erase them, turning away from his eyes and down at my feet. The hems of my pants were frayed, tiny white threads poking out in every which way direction and licking the tops of my sneakers.

"That's cheating," I pointed out, pulling my arms closer to my sides and burying my arms deeper into my sleeves.

"Ah," said Sam quietly, slowly picking up on my lack of desire to talk. I dug my toe into the gravel, a small indent forming in the dirt and coating the tip in dust.

"You know it's not fair since you can read people's minds," Sam pointed out, a half shrug to his shoulders. I looked up at him and he shyly glanced back through his bangs.

"I can't read people's minds," I explained, partially relieved to be moving onto a different topic but not fully as he remained standing next to me. "I can read … people. If I touch their skin then I can see the structure of their thoughts … if they're lying I can tell that they're lying but not what the actual lie is." He continued to stare, slowly nodded as he processed this new information.

"So … what would happen if you were to touch my skin?" He asked curiously, something to his voice that terrified me and gave me terrible hope at the same time.

'Then I would see the structure of your thoughts," I said simply, a tremble to the edge of my voice that betrayed whatever what was going on in my chest. He nodded slowly, a question forming in his mind that I could taste the words of.

"Want to try it?" He wondered with a child-like curiosity and interest. The words and tone sent shivers through me, tracing over my skin in a thousand ways they shouldn't. Maybe if I said yes then he would go away and I could continue my fall back into the past. Anything was better than whatever refused to be labeled that he brought out in me.

"Okay," I said shortly and removed my arms from my sides, leaving them cold and unprotected. He held out his hand and I cautiously lay mine on top, his fingers loosely connecting with mine. Thoughts and sensations nearly blew me backwards, swirls of feelings dancing through my mind along with something else … something more dangerous. His hands were gentle but worn, multiple uses of weaponry and gore lining it with evidence. I tried to take a breath but it caught and choked me with whatever made me dizzy and feel out of control. I quickly dropped my hand, my fingers skimming his palm, and balled it into a fist at my side with my nails clenched into it to remove the feel.

"What'd you see?" Sam asked quietly, a mild tremble in his voice that was both awful and wonderful.

"I felt … compassion, curiosity, frustration, sadness … a name. A girl's name. Jess," I said matter-of-factly with the faintest pinch of jealousy.

"Ah," he said quietly, shutting down with the sound of the name and staring down at his hands. It went silent, the sound of cars fading into the background, their shapes blurring into individual colors as they passed on the street.

"She was my girlfriend," he explained, speaking the words that I had already guessed. "She died. Not too long ago." I nodded, not sure what to say. I hated saying sorry. The words were hollow, empty of anything besides a pathetic attempt to offer comfort.

"I lost someone I loved too," I answered instead, the words casual but bringing up old emotions and images again in my chest. He looked up at me, his eyes sad and compassionate at the same time, making me hate him for balancing the two emotions so easily. I could barely handle one at a time.

"I thought that was cheating," he replied, a poor attempt of a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

"I told you, you tell me something about yourself and I'll tell you something about me," I explained, crossing my arms back over my chest and drawing back into myself and away from the most vulnerable I had allowed myself in years.

"So that's how it's going to work?" He asked with mild amusement, a more honest smile on his lips that he seemed to draw out of me. I bit my lip, not allowing it to occur.

"Yeah."

"Alright," he accepted with a nod, the stupid little smile still on his lips and in his eyes.

Children ran past us laughing, the sunlight catching off their various bright clothing and their laughter interrupting the air. Lucas sat in the middle of it all by a bench, bent over pieces of paper and crayons and a look of sad concentration on his face. Déjà vu once again assaulted me, a sad little girl alone in the brightness and laughter, surrounded by darkness and feelings no one

understood. They needed to have a sign next to the saying "Welcome to Lake Manitoc". Beware of mysterious drownings, mix matched furniture and bouts of random déjà vu.

"Can we join you?" Sam asked Andrea sitting on a bench under a set of trees with her gaze focused on Lucas. She turned at his voice and laughed with disbelieving amusement.

"I'm here with my son," she said, a politer version then my "Fuck off" would have been.

"Oh …," said Dean, noticing Lucas sitting alone. "Mind if I say hi?" He threw her a smile before walking over to him, not waiting for an answer. I glanced at Andrea, who seemed surprised and further amused by his confidence and, followed him. The dying grass shifted under my shoes and a light breeze wafted through the air and carried the sound of laughter and happy voices through the air. It was unsettling … all the happiness and innocence in the air. Me in my dark clothes and dark thoughts didn't fit right, a puzzle piece that had been cut out of shape so that it no longer fit.

"How's it going?" Dean asked Lucas, bending down next to him with a grunt, his jacket catching around him. He laughed slightly, taking in the sight of the colorful paper and plastic green army men scattered across the peeling paint on the bench. His eyes darted between Lucas and his work, licking his lips nervously and searching for an opening of what to do or say. He glanced up at me hopefully but I stared back, as much as loss as he was. He turned back, less assured then he had been a moment ago.

"Oh, I used to love these things," he said with an affectionate tilt to his head, reaching for one of the army men scattered. He picked it up carefully, the tiny plastic toy looking out of place in his hands. He brought it closer to his face to examine it, making gun and explosion like noises that sounded childishly unrealistic. He gave a low, fake yell and made the toy fall to the ground like it had been shot. He laughed slightly in self amusement, once again looking up at me. I raised my eyebrows at him, unsure whether to roll my eyes at his idiocy or be warmed by his attempts. He promptly turned back, catching on that I wasn't impressed.

"So crayons are more your thing?" He attempted again, changing his tactic. "That's cool. Chicks dig artists … they dig artists right?" He looked back at me for confirmation. I barely shook my head in response; I preferred guns to paint brushes. He looked away and I sighed somewhat and knelt to his height, my legs beginning to protest with my stoic standing position. His crude drawings layered each other, the one on top a continuous black circle that curved around the page and blended into a mess of confusion. Dean turned the corner up to examine the one beneath with interest.

"These are pretty good," he commented. "Mind if I sit and draw with you for a while? I'm not so bad myself." He picked up a crayon and walked to the other end of the bench, moving a pad of paper off of it so he could sit and balancing it on his knee. He ripped off a sheet and held it out for me, his arm stretching across Lucas who took no notice. I glanced at the thick grainy blue sheet and back up at him, silently questioning what I was supposed to do with it. He sighed and brought the sheet back to him and set it on the pad so he could use it. He placed his hand against the sheet with his crayon "artistically" held, adjusting how it was set as he thought over what to draw. I watched in mild fascination, miniature thoughts rearranging his facial expressions as they passed through. "You know, I'm thinking you can hear me; you just don't want to talk." The crayon started to move across his page with a set of motions that was unintelligible from where I was sitting. "I don't know exactly what happened to your dad, but I know it was something real bad." He glanced over at Lucas, still dutifully drawing, searching for a reaction or the barest sign that he heard him. He gave none and Dean turned back to his page, his crayon once again tracing itself across. "I think I know how you feel. When I was your age I saw something." He paused in speech, staring at the dirt and his facial expression becoming darker with emotion, his lips moving with words he couldn't speak, couldn't fully form. "Anyway …well maybe you don't think anyone will listen to you, or uh … or believe you." He stared down at Lucas with a sense of shared bond, the once lightness and sarcasm that I had gotten so used to in his voice becoming thicker … heavier. Weighing down with something that I didn't think he was capable of feeling. 'I want you to know that I will." He paused, waiting again for a reaction or sign, something to indicate that Lucas heard and understood but again he gave none. "You don't even have to say anything; you can draw me a picture about what you saw that day with your dad on the lake." I watched Lucas, tiny movements of words on his lips as he never looked up from his work, never ceased his attention to what meant more to him then could ever mean to me or Dean. Splatters of blood danced over the sheet, a memory editing out the present and I blinked it away. "Okay, no

problem. This is for you." He held out the sheet to Lucas, five crudely drawn stick figures decorating the surface of it. "This is my family. That's my dad. That's my mom. That's my geek brother and that's me." He pointed out each of the figures as he identified them, the five of them poorly sketched representations of what truly looked like. Unless his parents happened to be long sticks with four miniature sticks poking out and a bubble for a head. "And this … this is our newest member. Kate." My head jerked up slightly and I took in the fifth lopsided character by the edge of the page. It was a poor sketch; the dimensions and shapes of what I truly looked like wildly off but it sparked something small but alive in my chest. I looked up at Dean and he looked back, a small smile on his lips as he took note of the fact that he stirred a reaction in me. It wasn't his usual smile. Not one of sarcasm or innuendo but a nice one. One I could get used to seeing.

"Alright, so I'm a sucky artist," Dean admitted, turning his attention back to Lucas. "I'll see you around, Lucas." He pinned the crayon to the page with his thumb and held it there, placing the paper back onto the bench and standing. I also stood, grass and dirt marking my knees with evidence of where I sat. I brushed at them lazily, turning back to where Sam and Andrea still stood in the distance. She was faced toward him with her arms crossed over her chest, insanely small in comparison to his size. He nodded along as she spoke but looked up as he saw me, a small smile shaping his lips. I crossed my own arms over my chest, suddenly hot and cold at once.

"…Not since his dads accident," Andrea finished, glancing up at Dean and me as we approached, silently acknowledging that we were there.

"Yeah we heard," Dean said, easily picking up his place in the conversation. "Sorry." Andrea nodded in appreciation, ducking her head slightly in a weariness that ran bone deep.

"What are the doctors saying?" I wondered, shifting on my feet. I hadn't spoken in a while.

"That it's a kind of post traumatic stress," Andrea said with disbelief, the words rolling off her tongue and through her mind so many times that they had just become routine.

"That can't be easy," Sam acknowledged. "For either of you." He jerked his chin at Lucas, indicating that he had meant him as well.

"We moved in with my dad," Andrea explained, with an attempted smile. "He helps out a lot." She glanced at Dean before staring into the distance, the general direction of where Lucas presumably still remained, her eyes betraying the smile on her lips. "It's just … when I think about what Lucas went through, what he saw …" Deans gaze dropped from her face, her words carving their way through his chest and mind, before he looked up at Sam who stared back.

"Kids are strong," he said simply, a sense of proven fact in his voice. "You'd be surprised what they can deal with." I shifted again, dropping my eyes to the ground and tracing the formations in the dirt with my eyes.

"He used to have such life," Andrea spoke with longing. "He was hard to keep up with to tell you the truth. Now he just sits there. Drawing those pictures, playing with those army men. I just wish … hey sweetie." I glanced up, confused, taking note of Lucas now solemnly standing next to me, a piece of paper in his hands. He held the sheet up to Dean, his eyes firmly planted on the ground. Andrea looked up at Dean in surprise, her eyes wide in confusion. Dean took the sheet and held it with his two hands, taking in the crude representation of a red house with a green lawn stretched out in front.

"Thanks … thanks Lucas," Dean said, a soft edge to his voice that betrayed the fact that he was touched … though confused. Lucas turned and walked back to the bench with an air of completion to his walk, like his work was done. Dean glanced at me with questions in his eyes, a soft sadness in them that added another aspect into my image of who he was. An image that I thought was already complete and yet was rapidly being re-detailed.

"So …," Sam said, bursting into the room and closing the door behind him in one fluid movement. "…I think it's safe to say we can rule out Nessie."

"What no hello?" I asked the numerous clippings of newspapers blanketing my legs with grainy photos and smudged, fading words. Sam glanced over at me, a silent debate of how to respond to me occurring in his head.

"Hello," he acknowledged.

"What do you mean?" Dean interrupted and Sam continued his way over to where he sat, settling next to him on the edge of the bed and the end sinking under their combined weight.

"I just passed the Carlton house," Sam continued, shifting more comfortably on the quilt. "There was an ambulance there. Will Carlton is dead."

"He drowned?" Dean demanded in disbelief.

"Yep, in the sink," Sam answered in angered disbelief.

"What the hell?" Dean asked, his face screwed up with the strangeness of the situation. Sam shook his head slightly, his eyes darting across the side of the room with barely controlled frustration. "So you're right, this isn't a creature; we're dealing with something else."

"Yeah, but what?" Sam questioned.

"I don't know. Water wraith maybe? Some kind of demon? I mean, something that controls water," Dean responded, thinking out loud and a realization slowly dawning on him. "Water that comes from the same source."

"The lake," I answered, sliding off the mattress and scattering the clippings to an unrehearsed design across the quilt. I walked around the edge of the bed and to the chair awkwardly placed in the corner, an afterthought to fill up the empty space.

"Yeah," Dean said, glancing over at me as I moved and settled onto the hard surface, the awkward edges barely holding my small form.

"Which would explain why it's upping its body count," I continued, relaxing my arms over my crossed legs. "The lake is draining. It'll be dry in a few months. Whatever this thing is, whatever it is, it's running out of time."

"And if it can get through the pipes …," Dean continued, carrying on with my thought like it had been his to begin with. "…It can get to anyone, almost anywhere. This is going to happen again soon." He stood up as he finished, moving over to the poor setup of a table and chairs by the door.

"And we do know one thing for sure," Sam said, his gaze following Dean as he moved. "We know this has something to do with Bill Carlton."

"Yeah, it took both his kids," Dean answered, pulling on his shoe and beginning to tie up the laces.

"And I've been asking around …," Sam said, looking over at me as if to ensure that I was still included in the conversation. "…Lucas's dad, Chris … Bill Carlton's grandson." Dean nodded slightly, processing this news and finishing tying up his shoes.

"Let's go pay Bill Carlton a visit," I concluded, uncrossing my legs and standing up from the chair, pins and needles assaulting them.

The boards of the dock creaked under my footsteps, speaking in a groan of well use and age, the sound of the gentle waves moving against the supports underneath. Bill Carlton was sitting on the bench, his gaze focused out to the water with a deadened look in them that gave no preview to the pain that seeped into his veins.

"Mr. Carlton?" Sam cautiously asked and he looked up, his lips parted and his eyes heavy with tears that seemed frozen in every line of his face. "We'd like to ask you a few questions if you don't mind." He looked from Dean and me as he said this, indicating that we were included in those who wanted answers. Mr. Carlton however looked away and didn't take note of this obvious exerting task of gesturing to two people at once.

"We're from the department of …," Dean started, his words coming out in a rehearsed and professional manner that betrayed the fact that he had said them hundreds of times.

"I don't care who you're with," Mr. Carlton quietly said, his words heavy in the air and burning of sorrow. "I've answered enough questions today."

"Your son said that he saw something in this lake," Sam pressed on, compassion and professionalism prominent in his voice in a manner I could never pull off. Then again I probably couldn't have pulled off either of them even by themselves. "What about you? You ever see anything out there? Mr. Carlton, Sophie's drowning and Will's death … We think there might be a connection to you or your family." He voice got softer as he spoke, drawing closer to a subject that may sharpen and bleed upon approach.

"My children are gone," he said, an attempted sharpness to his voice that fell short, faded and smoothed by a break in his tone. 'It's … its worse than dying." His voice rasped with emotion and he turned away, eyes swimming. Sam nodded slowly, a muscle in his jaw tightening. "Go away … please." Sam turned to me and set a hand on my lower back, turning me away and into a pressured walk. I glanced back behind me, Mr. Carlton still watching the water with the same dead look in his eyes that was peeling and giving away to another darker and heavier emotion. Not deeper loss or pain but something suspiciously like regret … and guilt.

"What do you think?" Sam asked, crossing from where he was walking to the other side of the car, the gravel shifting and reshaping under his feet.

"I think the poor guys been through hell," Dean remarked, sauntering slightly to the driver's side. I dug my hands deeper into my pockets, the seams digging under my fingernails and the sense of darker thought in Mr. Carlton's mind weaving suspicion through my mind.

"What do you think, Kate?" Sam asked, the sound of his voice surprising me. I looked up at him, leaning over the Impala with his hands thoughtfully clasped on top. I glanced over at Dean who seemed distracted, his gaze off in the near distance and apparently uninterested in what I thought.

"I think he's hiding something," I said, turning back and Sam nodded in response, the same thought occurring to him and rearranging what he had previously thought of the situation. He looked past me, focusing on Dean who remained staring off thoughtfully. I turned again, Dean's stance on an angle and his gaze settled on the Carlton's house.

"Huh," he said in surprise and sense of coincidence. "Maybe Bills not the only one who knows something." He reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper, carefully opening it. I leaned closer to look past his shoulder, the drawing that Lucas did opening up to its full form. I stared at it for a moment, the details on it more prominent now, and looked up at the Carlton's house. The red roof, the green siding, the two steps leading down from separate doors ...almost every important detail of the house recorded into Lucas's drawing.

"I'm sorry but I don't think it's a good idea," Andrea politely said, her hands on her hips in attempted authority.

"I just need to talk to him, for a few minutes," Dean pleaded, his hands outreached innocently.

"He won't say anything," Andrea reminded him, exasperation in her tone. "What good's it gonna do?" She shrugged her shoulders forward, her hands never leaving her hips.

"Andrea, we think more people might get hurt," Sam softly warned, the shadows cast from the window etching their mark on his face. "We think something's happening out there."

"My husband, the others … they just drowned. That's all," Andrea insisted, an edge of suspicion eating away at the confidence in her voice.

"If that's what you truly believe then we'll go. But if you think there's even a possibility that something else could be going on here, please let me talk to your son," Dean assured her, sincerity carved into every word and miniature movement of his face.

Lucas sat crossed legged on the floor, colorful pieces of paper, crayons and army men scattered across the floor in front of him. The colors of the room around him were bleak, various shades of brown and green casting a weary background to the scene. Dean stared at him for a moment, taking to heart whatever was running through Lucas's mind, before settling his hands on his thighs and bending slightly to duck into the room and down to Lucas's size.

"Hey Lucas," he greeted, resting back on his ankles with his hands loosely clasped in front of him. "Remember me?" Lucas's crayon continued his journey across the page, a red line following it and creating a shape that only he knew. Sam shifted next to me, relaxing his arm against the wall and causing it to brush against my shoulder. A shiver passed through me, clenching my body in its tight grasp. Dean leaned over slightly, shifting apart the different drawings and taking note that each of them contained a sketch of a red bicycle. "You know, I, uh …I wanted to thank you for that last drawing." He shifted on his ankles closer, rearranging his jacket around himself. "But the thing is, I need your help again." He paused, waiting, before reaching into his jacket and pulling out the drawing and carefully unfolding it. The creases of the page were deeply etched into it now and he set it on top of the other papers, the sides sticking up with the pressure of being folded and unfolded so many times. "How'd you know how to draw this? Did you know something bad was gonna happen? Maybe you could nod yes or no for me?" He tilted his head somewhat hopefully, his effort gone unnoticed. "You're scared. It's okay, I understand. See, when I was your age, I saw something bad happen to my mom, and I was scared too. I didn't feel like talking, just like you." Sam shifted again next to me and I glanced up at him, his face darkening with emotion and a sense of sad realization. "But, see, my mom … I knew she wanted me to be brave. I think about that every day. And I do my best to be brave. And maybe … your dad wants you to be brave too." Lucas dropped his crayon and looked up at Dean, the crayon forgotten and rolling away onto the carpet. He stared at Dean for a moment, Andrea almost inaudibly gasping behind me, and picked up another drawing and handing it to Dean. He held it carefully, the edges crinkling underneath his finger tips. "Thanks, Lucas."

A car raced past, the sound of the wind rushing past it harsh in the air.

"Andrea said the kid never drew like that until his dad died," Dean remarked, an arm balanced casually over the steering wheel, his eyes darting back and forth between the road and drawing.

"There are cases … going through a traumatic experience could make certain people more sensitive to premonitions, physic tendencies …," Sam trailed off, running out of examples to further his point.

"Whatever's out there, what if Lucas is tapping into it somehow?" Dean asked causing Sam to groan with an "I don't know" attitude. "I mean it's only a matter of time before somebody else drowns. If you got another lead, please."

"Alright … we got another house to find," Sam sighed, not one hundred percent convinced but out of options in another direction.

"The only problem is there's about a thousand yellow two-stories in this county alone," Dean groaned. You'd think they'd become more original after the 999th one. Sam stared down at the page, taking in more helpful details with more watchful eyes.

"See this church?" He asked, lightly tapping the page. "I bet there's less than a thousand of those around here." He turned to Dean and I smiled slightly at the smartass attitude of his words.

"Oh, college boy thinks he's so smart," Dean mockingly remarked. Sam smirked and turned away and it cut into my chest in an unpleasant manner. He turned back slightly, his lips moving with unintelligible words as something crossed his mind that he was having difficulty voicing properly.

"You know, um … what you said about mom … you never told me that before," his voice becoming slightly rough with emotion.

"No big deal," Dean insisted, discomfort apparent in his voice and tight way he locked his face to watch the road. Sam continued to stare at him and Dean glanced over and turned away with a look of disgust. "Oh god … we're not going to have to hug or anything, are we?"

"Please don't," I groaned, making a face and not appreciating the awkwardness a hug between the two of them would have. Not to mention the driving hazard. Dean glanced back, remembering that I was there.

"See? Kate gets it," he acknowledged and turned back to the road, Sam grinning with the strangeness of the moment.

The sun glinted down from the side of the church, sparking lines of light down across the rest of it. I squinted slightly before dropping my eyes to the plain of dying grass painting the front lawn. Patches of dirt marked through the green and gave it an un-kept look that contradicted the drawing in Dean's hands. Dean held it out in front of him, glancing between the page and the church, comparing the two of them with deep thought. He lowered it, his eyes now fixated on a yellow house across the street, its girth nearly hidden by green bushes in the front. Sam looked back from it, looking over at me with a shrug and "might as well check it out" in his look.

"We're sorry to bother you ma'am, but does a little boy live here by chance?" Dean professionally asked, the elderly woman gaping at him with wide eyes and a confused facial expression that gave her a "deer in headlights" appearance. Probably wasn't used to being spoken to by such an attractive man … where they hell did that come from? "He might wear a blue ball cap, has a red bicycle?" He held a hand out to demonstrate a height, reaching to about his chest in size.

"No sir," she said sadly, her gaze dropping and taking on new features that hinted at a lifelong sadness breaking through. "Not for a very long time. Peter's been gone for 35 years now." Her gaze moved briefly and I followed it, resting on a picture frame with an image of a young boy inside. "The police never … I never had any idea what happened. He just disappeared. Losing him …" Sam's elbow caught my side and I looked up as he jerked his head to the side to indicate that I should follow it. I glanced over, a table full of army men falling into view. Seemed to be a hobby in this town. " … You know, it's …Its worse than dying." She turned away, broken shards of pain and memory cutting her where she used to be numb.

"Did he disappear from here … I mean, from this house?" I wondered, tilting back and forth on my feet.

"He was supposed to ride his bike straight home after school," she said tearfully, a frustration and need to understand gripping her voice. "And he never showed up." Dean turned away; his gaze directed elsewhere and carefully walked over, his footsteps loud in the room that had gone uncomfortably silent. I watched him walk over as he stopped by the mirror and pulled a picture stuck into the frame free and drew it closer to examine it. I tilted my head slightly to see the image but his bulk hid it from view, his reflection looking down at the image with interest. He turned it over and I caught a glimpse of an old bleakly colored image of two boys with wide grins.

"Peter Sweeny and Billy Carlton, 1970," he read out loud.

"Okay this boy, Peter Sweeny, vanishes, and this is all connected to Bill Carlton somehow," Sam thought aloud, piecing together the pieces we had into a still unfinished illustration.

"Yeah, Bill sure as hell seems to be hiding something, huh," Dean said, his suspicion heated by the photo that he had found.

"And Bill – the people he loves – are all getting punished," Sam continued, growing more excited with the pieces falling more quickly into place.

"So what if Bill did something to Peter?" Dean suggested, carrying the theme of the two of them thinking aloud.

"What if Bill killed him?" I offered, Dean acknowledging me in the rearview mirror.

"Then Peter's spirit would be furious. It'd want revenge. It's possible," Dean responded.

"Mr. Carlton," Sam yelled, turning in the gravel to better project his voice in the blanketed silence of the trees.

"Mr. Carlton?" I questioned into the air, the rustling of leaves the only response. A low roar sounded, muffled somewhat and distant.

"Hey," Dean said, alerting our attention and Sam and I both turned. "Check it out." A small red boat cut its way through the waves, the sides of it smoothing over the waves to make it briefly glassy. Mr. Carlton sat at the engine, his hand on the handle and his face strictly turned to the point. Dean looked back at us and we broke into a run, gravel shifting and flying unevenly under my shoes. The sand gave way to dock, the boards creaking and aching underneath our feet.

"Mr. Carlton," I yelled, my voice shoving a knife down my throat at the adrenaline and quick exhaust from the run.

"Mr. Carlton come back," Dean yelled next to me, his voice deeper with desperation and worry.

"Turn the boat around," Sam called, in distraction. Mr. Carlton glanced back, his face too far away to read before turning back, a completion in his manner. The water violently rose, gripping the sides of the boat and flipped it in a jerked motion. Dean wrenched with surprise, his face tight in shock. The boat landed hard on the water and shattered, Mr. Carlton vanished from view. Adrenaline ached in my veins and I breathed hard, memories flashing too fast for me to register blinking through my mind. I made a violent move to the water but Sam's arm whipped out from my side and caught me in the chest, knocking the air out of my lungs.

"Kate," he said in surprise, his arm holding me back and away from the dangerously close cut of the dock.

"Let me go," I said through my teeth, a harsh push in the back of my mind dragging me to the water and the need to save him, to at least try …

"Kate," he said more fiercely, turning me in his arms and gripping my elbows tightly. The collapse of the boat still painted itself in my mind, flashes of what I didn't want to remember cutting through. Fire, blood, screaming … so much screaming.

"Kate, there was nothing you could do," Sam insisted, his fingers digging though my jacket and skin, the fabric rubbing raw. I fisted my hands in his jacket, pulling desperately, hot thoughts burning through my mind and chest.

"Kate," he said more sharply and it snapped coldly through me, dousing every ounce of adrenaline and memory that had a moment ago burned so hotly. I slowly turned to him, breathing hard, suddenly exhausted and dizzy. His face was drawn close to mine, his eyes intensely staring into mine with emotions that my head wasn't clear enough to decipher.

"There was nothing you could have done," he repeated, his eyes scanning my face with something that made me want to collapse and cry. "There was nothing you could have done." I swallowed hard, a sharp bitterness on my tongue.

"Everyone can be saved," I said through my teeth and violently let go of his jacket and pulled away from him, from both of them. My heart beat persistently in my chest, in my head, my stomach, memories slicing their way through. Fire, blood, screaming … so much screaming.

Mr. Bar opened the front door, the metal of the frame catching the light and sparking off it violently. Sam stood back, a hand out to suggest I go first and I brushed past him and into the cool, almost darkness of the office in direct contrast to the outside. Sam followed, his footsteps so close behind me that I could almost feel his breath on the top of my head, his eyes never leaving my back as I spun slightly and stopped to allow Dean and the sheriff to walk in.

"Sam, Dean … Kate," Andrea acknowledged standing and turning to see us walk in. She turned to set down the heavy paper brown bag on her seat, the folds of her pink shirt rippling with her movement. Man I hated pink. "I didn't expect to see you here."

"So now you're on a first name basis," Sherriff Bar observed, jerking his thumb at us as if to clarify that she was speaking about the three of us instead of the many other Sam, Dean and Kate's in the room. He pushed the wooden door open and Sam caught it and held it open for me, leaning forward so that the door wouldn't slam on my legs. I walked through, the intensity of his stare starting to burn in the back of my neck with the strength of whatever he was thinking … or feeling. Sherriff Bar pulled off his jacket, dropping it on a chair, an exhausted and frustrated set to his shoulders. I crossed my arms over my chest, Sam continuing to watch me out of the corner of my eye. I glanced up at him, a forced glare in the set of my face, warning him to stop staring with no words. He either didn't get the message or ignored it, his gaze tracing over my face for any sign that I might lose it again. Of all the people to have a breakdown in front of you had to pick him … Lucas gave a harsh whimper, his face broken into utter terror and rushed at Dean, roughly grabbing his arm and pulling him.

"Lucas?" Dean worriedly asked, dropping down closer to his height and holding onto the hand clutching him. "Hey, what is it?" Andrea ran to Lucas's side, holding him from behind in an attempt to calm him. Dean knelt further down, Lucas's hands nearly wrapped around his and dragging him down further, tearless sobs breaking in his throat.

"Lucas, it's okay. It's okay," Dean attempted to sooth, brushing back Lucas's hair, Andrea clutching him against her as the fight faded out of him like dying embers in a fire. He slumped against her sadly, pain written into the lines of his face and unburying itself from his eyes. Andrea threw us an apologetic look and guided him out from around the desk, his face turned back to throw Dean a look of desperation. Dean slowly stood, watching him go and I caught a sliver of his face from where I stood the draw of it painfully done with a sense of helplessness in the set of his shoulders.

"Okay, just so I'm clear, you see … something attack Bill's boat, sending Bill, who is a very good swimmer, by the way, into the drink and you never see him again?" Sherriff slowly asked, his hands directing over the top of his desk as he tried to grasp the details of our story. Well when he puts it like that then it just sounds stupid. Dean turned to Sam and me for clarification, the look one of heavy sarcasm as he knew that the details were true.

"Yeah, that about sums it up," he said, turning back.

"And I'm supposed this, even though I've already sonar-swept that entire lake and what you're describing is impossible?" He demanded, glancing between the three of us for any sign of a crack or break in the story.

"Believe whatever you want but that's the truth," I said flatly, a harsher edge then I intended in my voice. Dean and Sam glanced at each other behind me, unsure what to think or do in response to my blunt words. Sherriff turned to me, his eyes hardening somewhat as he leaned forward on his hands, an attempted sense of foreboding in his stare.

"Well how about the fact that you're not really Wildlife Service?" He asked, his voice darkening with an attempted retaliation to my words. Dean paled next to me slightly, his eyes widening and his head jerking back slightly with surprise that he tried to force into ridiculousness. "That's right, I checked. The departments never heard of you three." His eyes still focused on me, his attention distracted from Sam and Dean as if it was a personal quarrel between the two of us. I stared back, not giving into his attempted force of fear or authority. I had stared down much more terrifying men then him, blinded by pain and tears. For him to assume that he was the slightest bit frightening was almost laughable.

"See, now we can explain that," Dean attempted, his finger jerking between the four of us in a desperate measure.

"Enough," Sherriff said, leaning back from his stance and recognizing that the other two were still in the room, giving up on whatever he had wanted to achieve in staring me down so intently. Staring contest probably hadn't been his goal. "Please. The only reason you're still breathing free air, is one of Bill's neighbors saw him steering out that boat just before you did. So we have a couple of options here. I can arrest you for impersonating government officials and hold you as material witnesses to Bill Carlton's disappearance. Or we can chalk this all up to a bad day, you get into your car, you put this town in your rearview mirror, and you don't ever darken my doorstep again." His words finished with anger and force, his finger pointed towards Sam like a teacher forcing a point on a misbehaving student. I leaned forward slightly the words: "Really? Never have to see this town again? I'll take prison" eager on my tongue but Sam's arm reached out and closed over my elbow, gently squeezing as a silent message of "be quiet." My previous words vanished from my mind; the only thought present the fact that he was touching me.

"Door number two sounds good," Sam assured him, his thumb almost absent mindly rubbing back and forth through the fabric, electric shocks jolting my skin.

"That's the one I'd pick," Sherriff said through his teeth.

The car rolled to a gentle stop, the barest light of the moon illuminating the back seat and casting everything into mysterious shadows. I shifted in attempted more comfort against the back, the seat belt twisting unpleasantly across my stomach. The engine rumbled softly, Dean's arm rested over the steering wheel and staring out at the road with an almost unseeing gaze. Sam glanced up at the stop light, noting the fact that it was green.

"Green," he said in impatience, pointing out the fact to Dean who seemed to take no notice.

"What?" Dean asked, snapping back from whatever had drifted his attention so far away.

"Light's green," Sam pointed out, nodding at the gentle glow.

"Which means go," I explained, shifting again. Dean ignored me and the car jerked lightly into movement, turning past the sign that read "Milwaukee" with directions stating that we were going the wrong way.

"Uh … the interstates the other way," Sam observed.

"I know," Dean replied, in full confidence, the car speeding up and roaring down the empty highway.

"Dean, this job … I think it's over," Sam gently explained

"I'm not so sure," Dean insisted, doubt and yet at the same time confidence in his voice.

"If Bill murdered Peter Sweeney, and Peters spirit got revenge, case closed. The spirit should be at rest," Sam continued, logic heavy on his side.

"All right, so what if we take off and this thing isn't done? You know, what if we missed something. What if more people get hurt?" He asked, an edge of emotion catching at the end of his sentence.

"But what would make you think that?" Sam wondered, softness in his tone that suggested a parent asking their child why they thought there were monsters under the bed. Dean didn't say anything for a moment, his explanation rolling around in his head as he pondered whether or not it would stupid, whether or not it would actually make sense.

"Because Lucas was really scared," he said quietly and I caught a glimpse of his face in the rearview mirror, the light from the streets lights sparking past his eyes and turning them gold.

"That's what this is about?" Sam asked in disbelief and surprise. Dean sighed, turning his head away from him as if the words out loud seemed so unrealistic and yet unable to go back on the worry they sparked.

"I just don't want to leave this town till I know the kids okay," he shrugged, a small laugh at the end of his words as if to brush off how deeply he felt the worry.

"Who are you?" Sam asked slight amusement in his voice. "And what have you done with my brother?" Dean glanced at him before glancing at me in the mirror, his eyes once again gold from the light. I stared back, the worry and concern for the kid that he felt touching on a level I didn't think he could experience. Didn't think he had.

"Shut up," he said simply, his eyes dropping back again to rest on the highway.

"You sure about this?" Sam questioned, hands dug into deep into his pockets and an impatience to leave in his voice. "It's pretty late man." Dean glanced at him before looking back to the door, his thumb pressing the doorbell with a buzz that answered Sam's question. The door burst open and Lucas rushed out panting, his face and eyes alive with terror.

"Lucas!" Dean demanded, clutching at his shoulders and trying to ignite calm. Lucas rushed away, still panting, a movement to his run that urged that we follow. "Lucas?" Dean briefly glanced back at us before I took off, the door slamming my side as I passed. The hallway was narrow, my shoulders barely brushing the sides as the steps thudded underneath me, followed by the thunderous run of Dean and Sam behind, the panicked sprint of Lucas ahead. Water was dripping down the steps, an ominous flow to it like blood. Blood oozed through the floorboards and leaking into the carpet, finger marks clawed through and dragged … Not the time! Lucas flung himself against the bathroom door, pounding on it with his pants turning into near sobs. I grabbed onto his shoulders and pulled him away, falling back against the wall and his small frame colliding against my ribs. Dean brought his leg up hard and slammed it through the door, boards splintering off and hitting the ground. I burst through the now open doorway, the bathtub overflowing with murky, churning water that splashed onto the ground and soaked it through. Sam rushed past me and thrust his arms deep into the water, clutching at the assumed Andrea underneath. His face tightened with exertion and I splashed next to him and shoved my own arms underwater. The water grabbed onto my tightly, pulling and clawing at my sleeves as if to drag me under as my fingers met something clutched and hard under the water. Hands shoved me into the water, air locking itself out of my lungs, the cold burning as I screamed … I grabbed onto the form, the lock of it tight in terror and pulled as hard as I could. Muscles flexed in my arms and I felt a tightening in my temples at the attempt to move something that couldn't physically be moved. Sam grunted and gasped, the strain of trying to lift her apparent on his face as her head broke the surface, her hair plastered to her face and her mouth opened as she choked and gasped. Some force tried to draw her down, dragging her face back to the water and I pulled harder, slippery flesh disappearing between my fingers. I gave a grunt, a heat and weight nearly blinding me, and drew back with all my weight, her body breaking free of the water. Sam held her close to his chest, her arms crossed over her tiny body and they collapsed onto the soaking floor. I fell back against the wall, water plastered against my face and I panted, every inch of me exhausted and taut with pressure. Andrea coughed and gasped, her head reared back as she struggled to breathe, the water in the bathtub churning with dying violence. I licked my lips, tasting blood and caught a sight of her bare midriff, still soaking wet. I glanced behind me, a towel hanging from a hook with its bottom half soaked. Better than nothing. I grabbed onto its corner and tugged, the folds of it unraveling and collapsing onto the floor next to me. I clutched it in my hands and slid over to where they still lay gasping, Dean and Lucas hovering in shock and terror at the door. I flung the towel over her naked body, the soaking fabric collapsing around her and fell back on my knees in complete exhaustion and defeat.

My fingers dug through the multiple notebooks, their pages out of line with one another and skimming my fingers with a cringe worthy kiss. Dean shuffled behind me, his footsteps loud in the muffled silence of the room. I skimmed my fingers down the binds, the fading and peeling names giving me generic words to go by and no guidance to better ones. A brown notebook with no bind drew itself under my fingers and I pulled it free, the words "Jake -12 years old" written across a softened piece of paper, taped on. I dropped it into my hands, peeling open the pages that were worn under my fingertips. Black and white photos decorated each page, various people inside the photos with either solemn or smiling faces with no apparent in between. I picked at the frayed edges, turning through the pages with half-hearted interest. Dean's footsteps came closer and I felt him stand close behind me, looking over my shoulder. I ignored him and continued look, my eyes darting from image to image.

"Hang on …," he interrupted, leaning over and staying my movements so that his hand hovered over the page. I paused as he flipped back, taking in the image that apparently sparked something in his mind. I looked back at him, his eyes changing as suspicion rose to recognition and a sense that pieces in his head were falling into place. He snapped the book shut over his fingers and pulled it out of my hands, turning and walking away from the stuffy corner. I made a noise of protest and followed. He walked back into the living room, the early morning sun shining through the many windows and dusting everything in a pale light. Andrea was at the table, her still damp hair pulled into a pony tail and a sweater draped over her shoulders. Sam sat next to her, his arms draped over his knees and his face serious and pensive. He looked so much bigger when compared to how tiny Andrea was, how fragile. Dean walked over all business like and set the book on the table between them, flipping open to the page that had distracted him so much.

"Do you recognize the kids in these pictures?" Dean asked, gesturing over the photo so that she knew which one he was talking about.

"What?" She asked, confused and blindsided by his sudden and strange request. "Um …um no, I mean, except that's my dad right there." She pointed to one of the boys but I didn't care enough to check which one. "He must have been about 12 in these pictures." Dean nodded, her words confirming what he already knew and further encouraging whatever thought he had.

"Chris Bar's drowning … The connection wasn't to Bill Carlton. It must have been to Sherriff," Dean voiced, directing his attention between me and Sam.

"Bill and the Sherriff … they were both involved with Peter," Sam continued, the early morning light dawning on his face and softening the hard lines of it.

"What about Chris?" Andrea asked, confused. "My dad … what are you talking about?"

"Lucas?" Dean suddenly asked, turned to where Lucas stood facing the window, a blank look in his eyes. "Lucas, what is it?" He calmly walked over to the door and unlocked it, stepping through the mild patch of light he created and outside.

"Lucas? Honey?" Andrea nervously asked, moving as quickly as she could over the moss leeched ground without breaking into a panicked run. He moved silently ahead of us, his footsteps not even making a sound as he stopped in a patch of moist moss, glancing up at Dean with an explanation of what to do next.

"You and Lucas get back to the house and stay there, okay?" Dean suggested, glancing at Andrea with a protective look. She didn't need telling twice and quickly grabbed onto Lucas's sleeve and he allowed her to pull him away and back into the "safety" of their house.

I dug the shovel tip into the soil, the edges of it cutting up the moss and collapsing it. I shifted the shovel up and jerked my hand so that it scattered in front of me, the pile of soil Dean dug up following mine. I dug the tip down again and it collided with something hard, a mild vibration climbing up the handle and into my hand. Sam glanced at me at the noise and I tossed my shovel to the side and fell to my knees, the richness of it staining my jeans. Sam burrowed his hands into the soil, the veins on his arms pulsing with the pressure. The feel of the dirt blended damply against my hands and coated it in heavy shades of brown as I shoved it aside, dirty metal pieces starting to unbury themselves. Sam grabbed onto one of the pieces awkwardly sticking out and pulled, the tomb around it crumbling and collapsing. I dug through, my fingers catching on something sharp and I pulled, ignoring the sting. The shape pulled itself free, clumps of dirt glued on awkwardly and revealing the shape of what was undoubtedly a bike.

"Peter's bike," Sam breathed, panting slightly.

"Who are you?" A voice ominously asked from behind, a gun cocking to complete the illusion. I turned around, my hair lazily falling to the side to see Sherriff standing several feet away with his gun pointed between the three of our heads. Guy had bad aim.

"Put the gun down, Jake," Sam cautiously said, dropping the handlebar onto the ground with the rest of the bike clattering. Oh so his name was Jake, I guess I could stop referring him as Sherriff then.

"How'd you know that was there?" He demanded, gun shaking with his attempt to keep calm and his eyes darting nervously between us and the bike.

"Google maps," I responded dryly making Sam sigh next to me with exasperation. Jake looked over at me and with a trembling hand moved the gun so that it pointed directed to the center of my forehead.

"What happened … you and Bill killed Peter, drowned him in the lake and then buried the bike?" Dean asked, torn between disbelief and anger. "You can't bury the truth Jake, nothing stays buried." Jake's breath started to come in faster as he surveyed the bike with a sense of something he hoped lost was suddenly and unwelcomingly returned.

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about," He insisted with attempted and for the most part failed calm.

"You and Bill killed Peter Sweeney 35 years ago. That's what the hell I'm talking about," Dean calmly replied.

"Dad," Andrea burst out, rushing towards us with great fear and confusion. Dad? I was the one with a gun to my head.

"And now you got one seriously pissed off spirit," Dean continued, in the same calm voice that spoke of the fact that he knew Jake's secret and nothing he did could change that.

"It's gonna take Andrea, Lucas, everyone you love. It's gonna drown them. And it's going to drag their bodies God knows where so you can feel the same pain that Peter's mom felt. And then, after that, it's gonna take you and it's not gonna stop until it does," Sam warned, the slowly rising sun casting a shadow over his face and darkening it.

"Yeah, how do you know that?" Jake challenged.

"Because that's exactly what it did to Bill Carlton," I replied and he turned back to me, his gun still trained between my eyes.

"Listen to yourself, the three of you. You're insane," he said, looking between the three of us to clarify that he didn't just mean me.

"I don't really give a rat's ass what you think of us," Dean shortly said. "But if we're gonna bring down this spirit, we need to find the remains, salt them, and burn them into dust. Now tell me you buried Peter somewhere. Tell me you didn't just let him go in the lake." Authority and control built in his voice as he spoke; daring Jake to challenge anything he had to say.

"Dad …," Andrea began, her voice trembling. "Is any of this true?"  
>"No," he said simply. "Don't listen to them, they're liars and they're insane."<p>

"Something tried to drown me. Chris drowned on that lake. Dad look at me," she pleaded, her voice breaking on the brink of hysterical. He slowly moved his eyes over to her, not wanting to look into her eyes. "Tell me you … you didn't kill anyone." He turned away, the muscles in his jaw shifting with words he couldn't bring himself to say. "Oh my God."

"Billy and I were at the lake …," he began slowly, his voice dragging like he was struggling with himself to say the words. "Peter was the smallest one. We always bullied him, but this time … it got rough. We were holding his head under the water, we didn't mean to. But we held him under for too long and he drowned. We let the body go and it sank. Oh Andrea, we were kids. We were so scared. It was a mistake. But, Andrea, to say that I have anything to do with these drownings, with Chris, because of some ghost … it's not rational."

"All right listen to me, all of you," Dean interrupted, cutting off the last word of Jake's speech. "We need to get you away from this lake as far as we can right now." Andrea nodded, turning and a gasp tore itself from her lips. I followed her gaze and saw Lucas crouched by the edge of the water.

"Lucas!" Jake yelled and tore off through the trees. I quickly followed, the dampness of the ground slipping and sliding beneath my shoes.

"Lucas!" Dean screamed, the folds of his shirt opening and catching in the branches but he neglected to take notice.

"Lucas!" Andrea called from behind me, the pine needles on the floor catching on my shoes. "Baby stay where you are!" I burst through the trees, the cover of dark snapping off of me and I skidded through the sand, a splash erupting from the water and indicating where Lucas vanished. Jake stuttered to a stop and I shoved past him, pushing ahead of Dean and Sam. I slid down the ramp to the dock, the boards shifting and thundering under my feet and propelled myself off the end and plunged under the surface. Icy cold water crashed into my face and stole my breath with the intensity. I pushed it aside, driving myself deeper against the inky cold that numbed every part of me. I had been in worse for longer. I reached out with my hands, searching for something, anything remotely similar to Lucas's form. My hands were empty, cold numbing them and almost ridding me of the ability to feel. I kicked off and my head broke the surface and a harsh gasp of air forced itself down my lungs.

"Lucas!" Andrea screamed, knelt by the edge of the dock with her face twisted into utter terror. I spun in the water, my teeth chattering and my hair against my face and blinding me. I took another breath and dived back under the crush of water. I pushed against the pressure, driving myself further down, my arms outreached and searching. They came back empty and cold, numb and bare … I kicked off, my head once again breaking the surface and I panted, a sharp pain in my chest, my entire body trembling. I turned in the water, the waves pushing against me and pushed my hair back from my face for any sign of movement. Sam turned to me, his own hair plastered to his head and his face worn with disappointment and growing fear. He shook his head at me and I turned again, my body begging me to allow it to collapse into itself for attempted warmth. Andrea knelt by the edge of the dock, her face broken and she wordlessly screamed. The water broke next to me, Deans head reared back and Lucas pressed to his chest, not moving. Andrea collapsed, her face twisted as she sobbed.

I swung my bag better over my shoulder, the lightness of it unsettling on my back. Dean marched in front of me, his walk locked like he was holding something back as he opened the backdoor and tossed his bag inside. Sam leaned over and tossed his own, the two bags colliding together and settling awkwardly. I threw my own bag in and slammed the door behind me. Dean looked down at his feet, his face drawn in and he absent mindly pulled his keys out of his fingers and tossed them between his hands.

"We're not going to save everybody," I said, the words breaking from my lips and forcing themselves into air. He looked over at me, an expression in his eyes that I couldn't read but that looked almost like understanding.

"I know," he said quietly.

"Sam, Dean, Kate," Andrea called, her and Lucas jogging onto the sidewalk with a covered plate in Lucas's arms.

"Hey," said Dean, walking over, still fiddling with the keys in his hands.

"We're glad we caught you," Andrea said shyly, her hands awkwardly tucking into her pockets. "We just um, we made you lunch for the road." She nodded to Lucas who held the plate out slightly to indicate that it was the lunch. "Lucas insisted on making the sandwiches himself."

"Can I give it to them now?" Lucas asked, looking up at his mother shyly. Dean grinned next to me.

"Of course," She smiled and kissed his hair, linking her fingers lovingly through it.

"Come on Lucas; let's load this into the car," Dean said, ducking to take the plate from him and jerking his head at me to indicate that I follow. Lucas marched off to the car with Dean closely following and I glanced back at Andrea and Sam who were both somewhat smiling.

"Sounds like a three person job," I mumbled and turned to follow Dean's hunched form. He ducked into the front seat and turned to sit on the seat with a grunt.

"All right, if you're gonna be talking now, this is a very important phrase, so I want to repeat it one more time," Dean advised as I opened the back door and leaned against the frame of it.

"Zeppelin rules!" Lucas excitedly repeated.

"That's right, up high," Dean congratulated, holding his hand up for a high five. Lucas returned it and I grinned, the action something I couldn't control and Dean turned catching it still hovering on my lips. He smiled back slightly, something lingering in it and he turned back to Lucas, clearing his throat. "You take care of your mom, okay?" He patted Lucas's arm and Lucas solemnly nodded. Sam and Andrea walked over and Dean stood up to greet them, leaning forward against the window. Andrea leaning against the frame of the door and pressed her lips carefully against his. I unfolded my arms from where I leaned as she pulled away, in surprise over her own action.

"Thank you," she smiled, the wind blowing back her strands of hair and the sunlight framing her face beautifully. I didn't like her. Dean leaned his head back slightly, mulling over what just happened and slowly nodded, finally processing the entire action. He scratched behind his head, ducking awkwardly and turned to walk to his side of the car.

"Sam, move your ass," he advised, brushing past me. "We're gonna run out of daylight before he hit the road." Sam grinned slightly and walked around the open door and past Andrea and Lucas, a small grin still on Andrea's lips. I slid into my seat and slammed the door closed behind me as Sam did the same. Dean turned on the engine, a low rock song bursting through the radio and Lucas waved slightly. He turned and saw me in the back seat and waved somewhat, a tiny grin on his face that he was just getting used to having again. I waved back slightly, trying my own attempt at a smile. The Impala backed up with a jerk and roared down the street, the sunlight reflecting through the windows and briefly turning everything in my vision to gold.


	4. 104 Phantom Traveler

Disclaimer: I do not own anything. Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke, Sera Gamble and pretty much anyone else not me.

The sound of a door opening sliced its way through my head, erasing the sharp edges of my dream and fading it out into a realization that it wasn't real. I shifted on the narrow couch, the roughness of the cushions rubbing against my bare legs, and reached under my pillow. The sharpness of the blade barely imprinted itself on my palm and giving me peaceful knowledge that it was there. Chances were I would probably end up slicing through the pillow as well if I pulled it out quickly enough … oh well, it wasn't like it was a cushion or something.

"Morning, sunshine," Sam's voice greeted with false cheer, a sigh at the end of his words as if the announcement was exhausting. I opened my eyes, a patch of grey light seeping through the half closed curtains and painting sections of misshapen shadows across the room.

"Oh," Dean groaned, shifting in his disheveled sheets and arching his back to turn and take in who had disturbed his sleep. Sam stared back, his stance suggesting no physical exhaustion and three cups of coffee balanced between his hands, a box of something unidentifiable under his arm. "What time is it?"  
>"Uh, it's about 5:45," Sam answered, glancing between the partially uncovered window and Dean, still intelligently sprawled across the bed.<p>

"In the morning," Dean moaned, turning away and scrunching up his face as if to block out the fact.

"Yep," Sam simply replied.

"Where does the day go?" Dean sarcastically wondered, rolling over and kicking at the sheets with his bare legs. The light shifted over him as he moved and illuminated his disheveled hair and lined tired face. "Did you get any sleep last night?"  
>"Yeah, I grabbed a couple hours," Sam blatantly lied, glancing down at the coffees in his hands as if the brief loss of eye contact could hide the fact.<p>

"Liar," I mumbled, pushing myself off the couch with the imprint of the pattern marking itself on my palms and my straggly hair falling over my shoulders. Dean and Sam both glanced over at me, recognizing and remembering that I was present.

"So, I was up at 3," Dean continued, picking up at where I started and making it his own. "And you were watching the George Foreman commercial." He sat properly as he spoke, running his hands over his bare legs and the bottom of his black boxers.

"Hey, what can I say?" Sam shrugged, gesturing to the objects in his hands as if to distract from the topic and make us drop it. "It's riveting TV."

"That's the biggest lie I've ever heard," I pointed out, rearranging myself on disheveled sheets and cushions sliding out of place. I better not have a stripped imprint on my ass. Sam laughed slightly, ducking his head and placing the coffees and box onto the table. The label reading "Timbits" turned towards me and I felt my stomach twist with hunger.

"When was the last time you got a good night's sleep?" Dean questioned, squinting up at Sam's turned back which cut through the light and creating a lumped shadow across the floor.

"I don't know," Sam admitted, turning back around with a coffee and the box returned to his hands. What was the point of putting them down …? "A little while maybe." He shrugged and crossed the floor, the carpet shifting almost soundlessly under his feet. I moved better on the couch, the sheet sliding over my knees and better covering them with worn fabric.

"Hi," he greeted, sitting down on the bed across from me and his knee bumping into mine. The contact brushed my mind with thoughts … nightmares, worry, exhaustion that ran bone deep, Jess … and sent off a sweet realization that he was touching me. "I brought you a coffee."

"Thanks," I mumbled and took it from his hand, the steamed feel of the cup rough in my hands still half slack from sleep. I brought it quickly to my knee and balanced it, the heat cutting its way through the sheet and presumably forming a small round intent in my skin. He held open the box of timbits with a slightly seducing air, the ghost of a smile on his lips that worn away the still fading edges of my dream and brought me wonderfully back to reality. I looked up at him with half rolling eyes and took the entire box, the poorly folded edges of it sticking out with an ill cared for appearance. He laughed slightly like he had expected it and ducked his head before looking up at me, the light casting off his face and sketching shadows across it. He was probably the first man I had ever thought as beautiful.

"How was your sleep?" He asked, cutting through my thoughts with no sense of what they were about. I bite my tongue to keep them back and bowed my head, turning the balls of essentially deep fried fat over one another for an appetizing one. Powders dusted my fingers and tiny crystals of sugar embedded themselves into my skin.

"About as good as yours," I answered, picking up a chocolate one and biting into it. Cocoa powder exploded into my mouth and ran it instantly dry and I sipped the coffee to rid the taste, ignoring the burn.

"That bad, huh?" Sam wondered, dropping the poorly constructed lie he had half heartedly brought up. "I told you that you could sleep on the bed."

"Wasn't that," I assured him, half heartedly telling the truth. It had been to some degree the couch – narrow structure, rough fabric and an identifiable sharp object sticking into your back did not equal good sleep – but to another it was the slashes of memory that tore through my nightmares, flashes of recollections breaking through my otherwise mundane dreams and reminding me of something that no one should never to relive. Or go through with a first time.

"What then?" Sam quietly asked, his voice rapidly softened and I looked up, his eyes searching over my face for a clue or sign that he could discover about me. Teasing prickles erupted over my skin at his gaze.

"Dean talks in his sleep," I answered simply, drawing back into myself and away from the edge of vulnerable that I had nearly tipped into. "And there is only so many times I'm willing to hear his voice." He continued to scan my face, taking note of the change that I had drawn back from.

"I know the feeling," he replied, responding to the answer that I hadn't voiced, answering the thought that I had pulled back brokenly.

"I am a joy to listen to," Dean interrupted, his voice breaking through whatever had been building and I looked over at him with a disgruntled look. He shrugged innocently, hands up as if to say "don't mind me." I sighed and set the box back onto the couch next to me, wiping my fingers on the twisted sheet.

"Well, I'm going to have a shower," I announced, pulling back the cover and setting the coffee on the floor. I stood up, the carpet briefly forming my foot prints and walked over to the ajar bathroom door.

"Call me if you need any help," Dean assured me and I turned to him, a smirk on his lips and a wink in his eyes. I raised my eyebrows at him and looked over at Sam, still seated on the edge of the mattress. He shrugged at me with a helpless air and I turned back to the door and walked inside, closing it behind me. I'd smack him when I came out and was more awake. Less likely I'd miss that way.

I stepped out of the Impala, the hardened gravel crunching underneath my feet like stepping on bones. I slammed the door behind me and tucked my arms deeper into my sleeves, a harsh wind snapping through the air and rapidly shoving the dark clouds across the sky. Sam and Dean also stepped out, Dean tucking the car keys into his pocket with a mild clatter of metal on metal. The large concrete building loomed ominously above us – maybe not Sam – and the front door opened, a middle aged man walking out with a balding head.

"Sam, Dean," He greeted, walking over with a hurried step. He reached out a hand and shook first Dean then Sam's hand with a business like air that bordered on friendship. He turned, pausing when he saw me.

"Who's this?" He wondered, glancing back at Sam and Dean as if I was incapable of introducing myself.

"I'm Kate," I informed him and he looked back at me to clarify that I had spoken before back at them to clarify what I was doing there.

"She's our newest addition," Dean explained. Newest addition? What was I an x-box?

"Hi, I'm Jerry Panowski," he explained and held out a hand for me to shake. I glanced down at it before back up at his face. I really wasn't in the mood to hear what his thoughts were. Probably something along the lines of some sort of hair growth product that obviously wasn't working.

"Must be a bitch to spell," I simply said, arms still crossed over my chest with the indication that I wasn't going to shake his hand. He froze slightly, tilting his head as if repeating what I just said to make sure he heard correctly. He glanced at Sam and Dean for help but they shrugged, growing used to the lack of filter in my head and on my tongue.

"Alright," he accepted and turned back to the building with an indication that we follow.

"Thanks for making the trip so quick," he thanked, his footsteps soundlessly moving over the floor and between the various shelves of heavy machinery. "I ought to be doing you guys a favor, not the other way around. Dean and your dad really helped me out." He turned to Sam as he said this, not ceasing his walk as he directed his comment to him. Walking while turning … I was impressed.

"Yeah, he told me," Sam answered glancing back at Dean. "It was a poltergeist?"

"Poltergeist?" A man asked, picking up on the detail of the conversation and inserting himself into it. "Man I love that movie."  
>"Hey, nobody's talking to you, keep walking," Jerry advised, turning to address the man as he passed. He looked back at us to indicate his re-entry into the conversation. "Damn right, it was a poltergeist. Practically tore our house apart. Tell you something, if it wasn't for you and your dad …" he looked back at Dean to specify that he meant him. "…I probably wouldn't be alive." Dean glanced over at me with a proud grin, checking to see if I was impressed. Maybe once he stopped thinking with his little head then I'd be impressed. Or thinking just in general.<p>

"Your dad said you were off to college, that right?" Jerry asked Sam, directing us into a larger, less cluttered space with large shapes of various aircraft pieces supported by white metal frames.

"Yeah, I was," Sam answered, prickles of almost visible discomfort breaking free of his skin. "I'm … taking some time off."

"Yeah, well, he was real proud of you. I could tell," Jerry explained. "You know, he talked about you all the time."

"He did?" Sam asked in surprise, leaning forward as if checking to see if he heard Jerry's words wrong.

"Yeah, you bet he did," Jerry insisted, snapping back to glance at Dean as a thought occurred to him. "Oh, hey, you know I tried to get a hold of him, but I couldn't. How's he doing anyway?"

"He's um …," Dean trailed off, hands tucked into his pockets as he searched for an acceptable answer. "… Wrapped up in a job right now."

"Well, we're missing the old man, but we get Sam … and Kate," Jerry pointed out, turning around to briefly walk backwards and face us. "Even trade, huh?" Sam and Dean both politely laughed. It wasn't that funny …

"No, not by a long shot," Sam answered modestly. "Maybe Kate though." I smiled somewhat, a bigger grin locked up inside my chest.

"I got something I want you guys to hear …," Jerry trailed off, moving on from the bad joke and moment that followed.

"… I listened to this," Jerry explained, opening up a CD drive and sliding a disc into it. "Well, it sounded like it was up your alley." He pushed it in further and it closed with a mechanical click. "Normally I wouldn't have access to this. It's the cockpit voice recorder for United Britannia flight 2485." Lot of flights. "It was one of ours."

"Mayday. Mayday. Repeat," the voice broke through the distortion on the disc, panicked and rushed. "This is United Britannia flight 2485 requesting immediate instructions and help."  
>"United Britannia flight 2485," another voice responded, more calm and collected with a loud alarm blaring in the background. "We copy your mayday."<p>

"We may be experiencing some kind of mechanical failure …," the first voice continued. Radio static shocked through the voice with an unearthly growl and roar that sent unpleasant shivers over my skin. The sound cut off with an ominous silence,

"Took off from here, crashed about 200 miles south," Jerry explained, filling in the scientific blanks. "Now they're saying mechanical failure. Cabin depressurized somehow, nobody knows why. Over 100 people onboard, only seven got out alive." I nodded slowly, the number echoing in my head with how small it was in comparison. "The pilot was one. His name is Chuck Lambert; he's a good friend of mine. Chuck, is, uh … well, he's pretty broken up about it. Like it was his fault."

"You don't think it was," Sam stated, no question in his voice like the words suggested.

"No, I don't," Jerry answered with complete confidence.

"We're going to need passenger manifests and a list of survivors," I requested, leaning back further in my chair and resting my elbows more comfortably on the arm rests. The three of them jumped slightly and turned to look at me, reminding themselves that I was still present. I had to start talking more.  
>"And, uh, any way we can have a look at the wreckage?" Dean asked, recovering and turning back to face Jerry.<p>

"The other stuff is no problem …," Jerry explained, also recovering. " … But the wreckage … Fellas, the NTSB has it locked down in an evidence warehouse. No way I've got that kind of clearance." Dean and Sam glanced at each other and the wheels in Deans head started to grind –most likely emitting a great deal of dust – as a plan slowly started to take shape.

"No problem," Dean assured him.

The door of the store opened with a bell ringing to announce the fact, Dean stepping out and holding the door open for the pretty woman walking by. She smiled at him in appreciation and he gave her a once over before turning back to us. I pushed myself off the hood of the Impala, the grooves of it digging into my back presumably leaving ugly red marks. Or maybe purple. Just not pink.

"You've been in there forever," Sam pointed out, his arms outstretched with a question to them as to why he took so long.

"You can't rush perfection," Dean pointed out, holding up the ID's so that they flared and exhibited snippets of information.

"Homeland security?" Sam questioned as Dean held out his card to him. Sam took it and flipped it over to further take in the details. Dean turned to me to hold out mine and I took it with a disinterested air, the plastic hard in my hands. "That's pretty illegal, even for us."

"Yeah, well," Dean argued, moving around to the driver side of the car. "It's something new. You know, people haven't seen it a thousand times." I moved around Sam to my door and pulled it open, the metal of the handle hot. I slid inside, the sun cutting strange shadows over the seat as Sam moved into the front seat. Dean grunted as he shifted better, the door slamming close on Sam's side.

"All right, so what do you got?" Dean questioned, looking down at his own Homeland Security card.

"Well, there's definitely E.V.P. on the cockpit voice recorder," Sam explained, opening up his laptop and switching to the page he wanted.

"Yeah?" Dean asked, waiting for Sam to continue.

"Listen," Sam advised and clicked on a button. I moved closer to the front seat and rested my arms on the back, indistinct and distorted voices breaking out over the speaker.

"No survivors," a voice broke through, raw and distorted with a screech to the end that dragged on longer then the words. Man needed a cough drop.

"No survivors"? What's that supposed to mean?" Dean questioned, his brow furrowed. "There were seven survivors."

"Got me," Sam shrugged, shutting down the laptop top.

"So, what are you thinking, a haunted flight?" Dean asked squinting against the glare of the sun reflecting off the traffic.

"There's a long history of spirits and death omens on planes and ships," I explained, rearranging myself so that I fit better between their two heads.

"Like phantom travelers," Sam finished, turning to look back at me and make sure that he was going in the direction I intended.

"Exactly," I congratulated with a small smile which he returned.

"Mm-hm," Dean nodded, leaning back against the door so that he could look at the both of us at once.

"Or remember flight 401?" Sam continued, ignoring Dean and shifting so that he could look at me better. I removed my elbows – least there be a mild collision – and shifted closer on the edge of my seat.

"Right, the one that crashed and the airline salvaged some of its parts and put it into other planes," I said remembering. "Then the spirit of the pilot and copilot haunted those flights."

"Right," Sam grinned, pleased that we were following each other's train of thought so well.

"Yep," Dean loudly interrupted and we both turned to him, his arm resting over the steering wheel with a somewhat irritated pose.

"Maybe we got a similar deal," Sam attempted, moving in his seat to better face the front and looking somewhat embarrassed.

"Alright," Dean announced, glad to be included again in the conversation and digging through his pocket. "So, survivors. Which one do you want to talk to first?" He held up the sheet of paper and scanned the list of printed names.

"Third on the list," Sam said, pointing in the general direction of the third name. "Max Jaffe."

"Why him?" Dean wondered, also looking at them name.

"Well, for one, he's from around here," Sam explained, moving back in his seat. "And two, if anyone saw anything weird, he did."

"What makes you say that?" Dean curiously asked, turning to look at him.

"Well, I spoke to his mother and she told me where to find him," Sam answered, a somewhat ominous tone to his voice as he left the answer hanging.

"I don't understand," Max said in confusion, carefully stepping through the overly manicured grass. "I already spoke with Homeland Security."

"Some new information has come up," I explained, a gentle breeze moving through the hair, drawing back strands of my hair and awakening faded memories. Scratchy white clothing, scientific sounding voices, the strong scent of medicine, leather binds clamping over limbs despite begging's to stop …

"Yeah, so if you could just answer a few questions," Dean said, picking up where I left off.

"Just before the plane went down, did you notice anything … unusual?" Sam asked politely, stumbling slightly on the last word as if he couldn't find the right one to fill the space.

"Like what?" Max asked, his head bent into his shoulder and a limp taking over his steps.

"Strange lights, uh, weird noises, maybe. Voices," Dean tried, attempting to keep his voice neutral and away from a more serious tone. Max stared at him for a moment, briefly picking up on suspicion before brushing it away.

"No, nothing," he insisted, setting his cane against the edge of the garden table and sliding into the varnished seat. I also sat, the smoothness of the wood nearly causing me to slide off and under the table. Just what mental patients needed a suspected conspiracy from the garden chairs.

"Hmm," Dean answered with disbelief. "Mr. Joffe."

"Jaffe," Max corrected.

"Jaffe," Dean acknowledged with little care. "You checked yourself in here, right?" Max barely nodded. "Can I ask why?"

"I was a little stressed," Max responded with his voice bordering on laughter that Dean didn't get that already. "I survived a plane crash."

"Huh," Dean said, not fully believing him. "And that's what terrified you? That's what you were afraid of?" Smooth, Dean … smooth.

"I … I … I don't wanna talk about this anymore," Max quickly said, picking up on where we were going and backing away.

"I think you did see something up there," Dean pressed, not picking up on Max discomfort. "We need to know what."

"No. No, I was delusional. Seeing things," Max insisted, convincing both himself and us.

"He was seeing things," Dean repeated dryly, turning to face me.

"I heard," I pointed out, turning away from the table and to the others scattered across the lawn. Patients moved across the grass in plain clothing, doctors in white jackets darting between them.

"There was this man," Max sighed, giving in to whatever he had so strongly denied. "And, uh, he had these … eyes, these, uh … black eyes. And I saw him … or, I _thought _I saw … him …" He paused, taking even breaths as he ran whatever happened through his head for further clarification.

"What?" Dean asked, drawn in and waiting for the punch-line.

"He opened the emergency exit," Max finished, hurriedly pushing out the words with denial. He looked between the three of us, silently begging for some reassurance that he had imagined it. "But that's … that's impossible, right? I mean, I looked it up. There's something like 2 tons of pressure on that door." Dean nodded slowly, processing the new information and piecing it together.

"Yeah," he said with great intelligence.

"This man, uh, did he seem to appear and disappear rapidly?" Sam wondered, leaning forward over the table with various strands of hair sticking out over his face. "It would look something like a mirage." Max's eyes darted back and forth before he broke out into a disbelieving smile.

"What are you, nuts?" He demanded. "He was a passenger. He was sitting right in front of me." Dean and Sam looked over at me and I rolled the information over in my mind like a bead between my fingers.

"So here we are. George Phillips, seat 20c," Sam acknowledged, gesturing up to house looming in front of us, a large unkempt garden in front.

"Mmm," Dean replied. "Man, I don't care how strong you are." He opened the door and climbed out; leaving whatever point there was to his words hanging. I yanked open the door and stepped onto the sidewalk, the lazily cut grass alternating in length over my shoes.

"Even yoked up on PCP or something," Dean continued. "No way can you open an emergency door during a flight."

"Not if you're human," I pointed out, stepping up further on the grass, the dusted petals of a dandelion catching onto my hem.

"But maybe this guy George was something else," Sam suggested, turning back to the car and resting his clasped hands on top. "Some kind of creature, maybe? In human form?"

"Does that look like a creature's lair to you?" Dean asked, gesturing to the house. Sam turned to look at it, taking in the grey home with black shingles and the wild bushes dotted with flowers in front. Appearances could be deceiving.

Sam picked up the picture frame by the back and turned it around to face him, taking in the sight of the smiling middle aged man.

"This is your late husband?" He asked, gesturing to it to indicate that this was who he meant. That or she was having a very open affair.

"Yes, that was my George," she said quietly, a sad exhaustion in her voice.

"And you said he was a … dentist?" Dean asked, Sam leaning over and carefully setting the picture frame back onto the table next to the vase of fake apples. False advertising.

"He was headed to a convention in Denver," she nodded sadly. "Do you know he was petrified to fly?" Dean turned his head with a "really?" tilt, not one hundred percent certain what the detail had to do with anything.

"For him to go like that …," she trailed off; her face twisting with barely contained grief.

"How long were you married?" Sam gently wondered.

"Thirteen years," she answered a small, sad smile on her lips.

"And all that time …," Sam continued, looking down at the picture frame in front of him. "…Did you ever notice anything strange about him? Anything out of the ordinary?" She looked between the three of us – Dean and Sam seated with me leaning against the door frame – with uncertainty.

"Well …," she started, still looking unsure about the question. "He had acid reflux if that's what you mean."

"I mean, it goes without saying, it just doesn't make sense," Sam pointed out, stepping quickly down the raggedly cut stone steps.

"Yeah, a middle-aged dentist with an ulcer is not exactly evil personified," Dean responded with dripping sarcasm, taking the last step and walking onto the sidewalk.

"You'd be surprised," I pointed out dryly, Dean looking back to acknowledge me.

"What we do need to do is get inside that NTSB warehouse, check out the wreckage," Dean stated, stopping so that he could look at the both of us at once.

"Okay, but if we're gonna go that route, we better look the part," Sam pointed out, heavy suggestion in his tone.

I adjusted myself on the car bumper, a chilled wind pulling at the undone folds of my jacket. I'd have to put up a sign reserving the bumper, I used it so often. The door to the store opened and I looked up, Dean and Sam stepping out with matching black and white suits. An ache beat in my chest at the sight of Sam, tugging at the collar of his shirt and adjusting it. I curled my fingers into the sleeves of my jacket to keep from reaching out and fixing it for him, grazing my fingers through his hair and over his neck … I needed help. Dean looked down at the suit in displeasure, picking up on nearly invisible details about it that displeased him. Sam untucked his fingers from his collar and froze, his finger still locked in the fabric. I casually glanced behind me at the mundane traffic before turning back. What was he looking at?

"Hey," he said and walked over, running his hand through his hair and poorly smoothing it down.

"Hey," I answered, nervous dancing moving through my stomach.

"What are you wearing?" He asked, taking in my attire. I glanced down at them, the brown leather jacket, pressed white shirt and dark jeans, staring back at me with innocence.

"Clothes," I said and looked back up, not wanting to go into boring detail.

"Kind of casual don't you think?" He asked, again adjusting his collar like a nervous tick.

"I think I look fine," I said pointedly. It had been the best dressed I had been since … ever.

"Damn straight you do," Dean said, looking me up and down with interest.

"Yeah, well you look like one of the Blues brothers," I informed him dryly. His smile dropped and he looked back down at himself with continued disapproval. Sam let out a burst of laughter and tugged the collar down so that it creased with an unkempt appearance.

"Stop fidgeting with your collar, you look like a grade seven at his first dance," I pointed out, moving away from the side and to the backdoor, the two of them staring after me with bewildered looks.

I held up the ID with confidence, the picture of me standing out from the details and leather case. Dean and Sam also held up there's with confidence, Sam almost bordering on look bored with his collar still unfixed. I bit the inside of my check to keep from reaching up and fixing it for him. Probably couldn't reach anyway, I'd need a step ladder or something. The guard nodded and Sam returned the nod in thanks, putting his ID away. I tucked my own ID into my jacket pocket and walked down the short hallway to the large metal door, dark bolts nailing it in place. A buzz echoed and Sam pulled open the handle with ease, holding it open so that Dean and I could walk through. My footsteps instantly echoed inside, large distant lights reflecting from the ceiling and illuminating the poorly reconstructed aircraft in the centre. I moved through the broken pieces of machinery, my footsteps loud on the concrete floor. Dean dug through his jacket and fished out a small gadget, unraveling the cord around it.

"What is that?" Sam questioned as Dean slipped a headphone into his ear.

"EMF reader," he explained, turning it over in his hands. "It reads Electromagnetic frequencies."

"Yeah, I know what an EMF meter is," Sam said with exasperation. "But why does that one look like a busted-up walkman?"

"'Cause that's what I made it out of," Dean explained proudly. "It's homemade." He held it up like a trophy, showing off the "apparent" skill that went into making it.

"Yeah, I can see that," Sam said with sarcasm, a growing grin on his face. Dean stared back at him mockingly before turning away, the EMF – or busted walkman – held out with its motor peacefully whirring. I followed behind, taking in the twisted metal that loomed ominously. It cast distorted shadows across the room, the lights cutting over the edges. Dean waved the EMF meter over a warped bar, pausing and swiping it back again, the tiny lights on the top flashing more violently. He tucked it back into his jacket.

"Check out the emergency-door handle," he advised, running his fingers over the edge with an observing – almost scientific air – and drawing them back, covered in yellowing residue. "What is this stuff?"

"One way to find out," I observed and stooped to my ankle, unsnapping the knife and unfolding it from the hem of my jeans. I re-stood and moved closer to the handle, scrapping the blade over the yellow residue, the substance chipping easily.

"Here," Sam said, holding out a small plastic bag and I scrapped the residue into it, the contents flaking in the pinched bottom. Dean made a face at the powder still on his hands and wiped them onto Sam's jacket with childish innocence. I knelt again and slid the knife back onto my ankle; the edge of it now flaked with yellow. The sound of a far off closing door broke through the subdued noise of the room and I froze, ears straining. Footsteps were echoing not far off, a hurried pace to them that seemed too impatient to be the steps of a casual walker.

"We got company," I warned, re-standing as Dean and Sam turned to the door, also hearing the footsteps. We took off, shoes pounding over the floor with muffled footsteps and around the dangerously arranged metal. Dean shoved open the door and I pushed through it, my heart pounding in my ears with urgency. The brilliant sunshine darkened everything significantly and I squinted against it. Dean moved past me and around to the edge of the building, peering out around it. Sam quietly closed the door behind him and looked out past Dean, gesturing to me that the coast was clear. I followed him, chest aching with adrenaline and my legs building pressure with the urge to break into a run. Sam and Dean walked on either side of me with attempted calm, not ready to break into relief yet. An alarm blared through the air urgently and snapped the poorly held adrenaline inside me. I broke into a run with Sam and Dean following me, the hot pavement blurring underneath my feet. A metal fence loomed in front of us and Dean undid his jacket with urgency, tossing it awkwardly on top. I made a small leap and dug my fingers into the wire, my feet poorly balanced on a lower bar. I pulled myself up, Sam and Dean grunting next to me as they climbed. I grabbed onto the top – the twisted wire biting onto my hands – and slid over, the pavement hotly connecting with my feet. Dean landed next to me, stumbling back slightly before jumping up to catch the sleeve of his jacket and swinging it over.

"Wow, these monkey suits do come in handy," he said with slight awe, gesturing to the fabric and bolting off into the shadowy front of the building. I glanced at Sam breathlessly who shrugged and we both took off after him, alarm still echoing in my ears.

Jerry stared into the microscope lens with concentration, sifting his body weight to adjust his view of it without having to move the lens.

"Huh," he said with interest and moved away, glancing up at us. "This stuff is covered in sulfur."

"You sure?" Sam asked, his thumb lazily moving over the folds of his sleeve.

"Take a look for yourself," he welcomed, gesturing at the screen, distant yells breaking an undercurrent to his offer. "If you fellas will excuse me, I have an idiot to fire." He moved away from the desk and into the confusion of machinery.

"Hey Einstein," he called, his voice fading out. "Yeah, you …" Dean moved around the desk to the microscope and peered into the lens. I sighed and untucked my hands from my jacket and into the back pocket of my jeans. Stinging lines still imprinted themselves on my palms and wore against the fabric.

"Hmm," said Dean with interest, pulling away. "You know there's not too many things that leave behind a sulfuric residue."

"Demonic possession?" Sam asked, glancing up at him.

"It would explain how a mortal man would have the strength to open an emergency hatch," Dean said, thinking aloud and leaning forward on his hands

"If the guy was possessed it's possible," I explained, removing my hands from my pockets, the sting becoming a burn.

"Yeah, but this goes way beyond floating over a bed or barfing pea soup," Dean observed, straightening and tucking his hands into his pockets, the fabric of his jacket gathering. "It's one thing to possess a person, but to use him to take down an entire airplane?"

"You ever heard of something like this before?" Sam asked, turning to look up at me, for once being shorter than me. Though granted he was sitting.

"Never," I said simply, my hair falling like a curtain over the side of my face and causing thin snippets of sun to fall through. Sam paused in his movement and stared at me, aching warmth on his face that seemed to run a blade down my insides and rip them raw.

I tapped the pen against my lips in thought, my eyes jumping over the various black and white sketches on the wall. The occasional photo blended in with the rest of them, the color scheme making it difficult for them to stand out.

"So every religion and every culture in the world has the concept of demons and demonic possession, right?" Sam said, leaning back more comfortably in his chair. "I mean, Christian, Native American, Hindu, you name it …"

"Yeah, but none of them describe anything like this," Dean pointed out, drawing his fingers away from the open pages of the book he was reading, the light briefly glinting off his ring.

"Well, that's not exactly true," Sam countered. "You see, according to Japanese belief, certain demons are behind certain disasters, both natural and man-made." I turned away from the wall and to the back of Sam's chair, generic articles brought up on the screen. Sam glanced up to acknowledge me, not pausing in his words. "One cause's earthquakes, another cause's disease."

"And this one causes plane crashes," I implemented, my tone making the words balance between question and statement. Sam shrugged as an answer, hands gesturing to suggest "I guess so." Dean groaned and moved up from the mattress.

"Alright. So, what, we have a demon that's evolved with the times and found a way to ratchet up the body count?" Dean asked, moving over to where I stood and Sam sat the light from the window cutting over his face.

"Yeah," Sam answered, lazily clicking at the keys. "And, you know, who knows how many planes it's brought down before this one." Dean nodded, mulling this over in his head for a moment before chuckling under his breath and turning away.

"What?" Sam softly asked, questioning Dean's sense of dry humor.

"I don't know man," Dean started, scratching the back of his head and turning back, his hand now gesturing with his struggle to explain what was going on in his head. "This isn't our normal gig. I mean, demons, they don't want anything, just death and destruction for its own sake. And this is big." Sam nodded turning away, the same thoughts occurring through his own mind.

"And I wish dad was here," Dean continued, speaking like this had been the problem all along but that his thoughts had worked themselves out of order.

"Yeah, me too," Sam quietly agreed. I glanced between the two of them, their gazes turned away as they took awareness of the same situation with varying degrees of emotion directed towards it. Well … this was awkward. A phone rang and Dean dug through his pockets to pull it out, opening the top and pressing it to his ear.

"Hello?" He asked, professional again after the moment that bordered between intense awkwardness and a family moment … with me being awkward. "Oh, hey, Jerry …," he paused and his face darkened with surprise. "…Jerry, I'm sorry. What happened?" Sam looked up curiously, his fingers grazing the edges of a piece paper over his keyboard. "Where'd this happen? … I'll try to ignore the irony in that … Nothing. Jerry, hang in there, all right? We'll catch up with you soon." He clicked off the phone and looked at Sam and me with a disbelieving gaze.

"Another crash?" Sam asked, guessing from the fragments of conversation he had heard.

"Yeah. Let's go," Dean said, tucking his phone back into his pocket.

"Where?" I asked.

"Nazareth," he answered with an ironic look, Sam barely smiling in response.

"Sulfur?" Dean asked, Jerry pulling away from the microscope. Jerry barely nodded, confirming Dean's suspicions. "Well, that's great." He turned around to face Sam, sitting at a desk with a model plane propped up in front of him. "Well, that's two plane crashes involving Chuck Lambert. This demon sounds like it was after him."

"With all due respect to Chuck," Sam indicated to Jerry. "Um, if that's the case, that would be the good news."

'What's the bad news?" I asked, turning a tiny model plane over in my hands. It was probably the only time that I had been bigger then something.

"Chuck's plane went down exactly 40 minutes into flight," Sam continued. "And get this, so did flight 2485."

"Forty minutes? What does that mean?" Jerry wondered, glancing between us, his eyes red with exhaustion and poorly kept tears.

"It's biblical numerology," Dean patiently explained. "You know, Noah's Ark, it rained for forty days. The number means death." And the number thirteen has been getting a bad rap …

"I went back and there have been six plane crashes over the last decade that all went down exactly 40 minutes in," Sam added, clicking over the laptop screen.

"Any survivors?" I asked, setting the plane back onto the shelf, balancing it precariously.

"No," Said Sam, shaking his head. "Or, not until now, at least. Not until flight 2485, for some reason. On the cockpit voice recorder, remember what the E.V.P. said?"  
>"No survivors," Dean quoted in remembrance. Sam nodded, the pieces of the puzzle starting to fall easier into place.<p>

"It's going after all the survivors," I voiced, the words making even more sense out loud.

"It's trying to finish the job," Dean remarked with a sigh of realization.

"Well, thank you for taking our survey, and if you do plan to fly, please don't forget your friends at United Britannia Airlines," Sam politely spoke, shifting his hold of the cell phone against his ear. "Thanks." He hung up the phone, crossing a name off the list in front of him. "All right, that takes care of Blaine Sanderson and Dennis Holloway. They're not flying anytime soon."

"That just leaves the flight attendant, Amanda Walker," I observed, leaning over Sam's shoulder to read the uncrossed name still on his list.

"Right. Her sister Karen said her flight leaves Indianapolis at 8 p.m. It's her first night back on the job," Sam explained, folding back up the sheet and tucking his pen along with it.

"It sounds like just our luck," Dean sighed, a breeze wafting through the window and ruffling his hair.

"Dean, this is a five-hour drive, man, even with you behind the wheel," Sam pointed out, taking note of Dean's unorthodox driving skills. Dean sighed, considering the next possible option.

"Why don't you call Amanda's cell phone again, see if we can't head her off at the pass," he suggested, scrambling for another option.

"I already left her three messages," Sam explained, rubbing the back of his head. And four was the official "you have a stalker" number. "She must have turned her cell phone off." He sighed deeply with exasperation. "God, we're never gonna make it."

"Oh we'll make it," Dean insisted, the Impala snapping around a corner and blaring more violently down the road.

I jogged through the sliding doors, brushing past a man in a business suit whose suitcase clipped me in the knees. I shoved by more harshly, slowing to a stop in front of the multiple screens displaying departure and arrival times. Dean and Sam slowed next to me, the three of us taking in the names and times that were slowly changing as the details did.

"Right there," said Sam pointing, somewhat breathless from the run. "They're boarding in 30 minutes."

"Okay," Dean panted, nodding with acknowledgment. "We still have some cards to play. I need a phone." What was he going to order a pizza? He pushed through in front of us and darted through the crowd, Sam and I following, only half aware of what was going on. He skidded to a stop in front of a pay phone and pulled it off the hook.

"Uh, gate 13," Dean voiced into the phone, shifting with anticipation. "I'm trying to contact an Amanda Walker. She's a flight attendant on flight, um …"

"Flight 424," I whispered, leaning forward so he could hear me.

"Flight 424," He said into the phone, placing a hand on my shoulder in silent thanks. Tightly wound nerves pulsed through his head, darts of exhaustion and adrenaline pulling through. He dropped his hand and held the phone more closely, impatient bubbling through his expression.

"Come on," he said through his teeth. "Miss Walker." He brightened in mild relief and straightened like it made a difference. "Hi, this is Dr. James Hetfield from St. Francis Memorial Hospital. We have a Karen Walker here … nothing serious, just a minor car accident but she was injured so …" He trailed off, face faltering. "…You what? … Uh, well, must be some mistake." He turned away from us, Sam darting to follow his movement and try and get a sense of what was going on. "Guilty as charged." He chuckled nervously. "He's really sorry." This conversation was really hard to follow one-sided. "Yes, but he really needs to see you tonight. So …Don't be like that. I mean come on. The guys a mess. Really, it's pathetic … oh yeah … No. No, wait. Amanda … Amanda!" He pulled the phone away from his ear and with attempted calm set it back on the hook.

"How'd it go?" I wondered, leaning against the post. He turned, throwing me a disgruntled look before stepping away in frustration, running a hand over his face.

"Damn it. That was so close," he paced in continued frustration, other various options crumbling before they started. Yeah, because it sounded like he was doing well.

"All right," Sam sighed. "Time for plan B." Wasn't _that _plan B? "We're getting on that plane."  
>"W… well, now, just hold on a second," Dean quickly said, attempted – and failed – calm in his voice.<p>

"Dean … that plane is leaving with over 100 passengers on board," Sam pointed out, urgency starting to push into his voice. "And if we're right …" he dropped his voice lower "…that plane is going to crash."

"I know," Dean insisted, nerves starting to break free of his composure.

"Well, okay," Sam said, not sure what the problem was. "Then we're getting on the plane and we need to find that demon and exorcise it. Look Kate and I will go get the tickets you go get whatever you can out of the trunk, whatever will make it past security. Meet us back here in five minutes." He made a move to leave before pausing, taking in the barely controlled nerves that were more gradually taking over Dean.

"Are you okay?" He asked quickly, hoping that it was a yes answer followed by a quick movement into action. Dean started to nod yes before changing his tactic half way through.

"No. Not really," he admitted.

"What?" Sam sweetly asked the sound sending goose bumps down my spine. "What's wrong?"

"Well, I kind of this problem with, uh …," Dean whispered, moving his hand in a jerked motion that looked like … well, nothing.

"Flying?" I asked, not sure what else could have filled what he was trying to say.

"It's never been really been an issue until now," he insisted, avoiding a "yes" answer.

"You're joking right?" Sam asked, disbelief in his tone.

"Do I look like I'm joking?" Dean demanded, his face becoming more twisted with growing fear. "Why do you think I drive everywhere?"

"All right," said Sam, reshaping the plan in his head. "Uh, Kate and I will just go."

"What?" Dean demanded.

"Kate and I will just do this by ourselves," Sam calmly shrugged.

"What are you nuts?" Dean questioned. "You said yourself the plane is going to crash."

"Dean we can do it together or Kate and I can do it ourselves," Sam pointed out, pressure starting to build with the intensity of the situation. "I'm not seeing a third option here." Sending one of us by ourselves … that would be a third option. Dean stared at him, playing his options over his head. Judging by his facial expression they weren't good.

"Come on," he said with exasperation. "Really?" He looked around, growing gradually more aware of his lack of options. "Man."

"Flight attendants, please prepare for departure," the voice over the intercom politely said, tiny movements in the plane starting to make it tremble. I shifted in my seat, the fabric moving beneath me and the seatbelt cutting into my lap.

"Just try to relax," Sam whispered to Dean with attempted encouragement.

"Just try to shut up," Dean threw back, his teeth clenched. The engine roared and the plane started to shake faster, everything trembling with its movement. I glanced over at Dean, sitting painfully stiff in his seat, clutching the arm rests.

"Need to hold my hand?" I whispered, leaning over the narrow aisle. He glanced over at me, before turning away, stiffly shaking his head.

"Once in a lifetime offer," I informed him, righting myself in my own seat. The roaring slowed somewhat, the tilt of the plane changing and the black sky outside the window moving faster.

Dean hummed next to me, his head uncomfortably forced back against the seat with his continued attempt to glue himself against it. Sam glanced around him at me before looking up at Dean, still humming the same tune under his breath.

"You humming Metallica?" Sam asked in surprise.

"Calms me down," Dean insisted. Sam looked away with a scoff, shaking his head slightly.

"Look man. I now you're nervous but you gotta stay focused," Sam pointed out. Dean shot him an irritated look before quickly nodding.

"Okay."  
>"I mean, we got 32 minutes and counting to track this thing down or whoever it's possessing, anyway, and perform a full-on exorcism," Sam reminded him.<p>

"Yeah, on a crowded plane. That's gonna be easy," Dean said, voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Just take it one step at a time, all right?" Sam calmly asked. Dean nodded, swallowing hard.

"Now, who is it possessing?" Sam asked, glancing around at the various passengers.

"Well, it's usually gonna be somebody with some sort of weakness, you know, a chink in the armor that the demon can worm through," Dean stated, his words distracting himself somewhat. "Somebody with an addiction or some sort of emotional distress." He glanced behind him at a stewardess walking by, before snapping his head back around.

"Well, this is Amanda's first flight after the crash," Sam observed. "If I were her, I'd be pretty messed up."

"Mm-hmm," Dean nodded. The stewardess paused behind me and I twisted in my seat.

"Excuse me?" I asked, speaking as politely as my body would allow. She turned at my voice, resting a hand on the back of my seat. "Are you Amanda?"  
>"No, I'm not," she apologized.<p>

"Oh, my mistake," I informed her, giving her an apologetic smile. She nodded and moved on ahead of me. I twisted again as Dean did, glancing down the aisle to see a pretty blonde behind the curtain in a stewardess's uniform. I turned back to face Dean who nodded, thinking what I was thinking.

"All right. Well that's gotta be Amanda back there, so …," Dean trailed off, taking a deep breath to calm himself. "I'll go talk to her, and, uh, I'll get a read on her mental state." Seemed smart, the one of us with the worst mental state going to check on someone else's.

"Right," Sam nodded. "What if she's already possessed?" Dean paused, thinking for a moment before digging through the bag at his feet. Hopefully his own.

"There's ways to test that," he informed us, digging through it and pulling out a crumbled water bottle with water inside. "I brought holy water." He must be a fun person to vacation with.

"No," Sam flatly said, grabbing the bottle and shoving it into his jacket. "I think we can be more subtle. If she's possessed she'll flinch at the name of God."

"Nice," Dean acknowledged, getting up from his seat.

"Hey," Sam called after him.

"What?" Dean demanded, turning back.

"Say it in Latin," Sam whispered, his words barely loud enough for me to hear.

"I know," Dean insisted, turning to walk back again. I reached out and grabbed his jacket and pulling him back, barely controlled nerves bubbling beneath his surface.

"The Latin word for God is Deus," I informed him quietly, his face close to mine.

"I know," he insisted, pulling free of my grip and moving down the aisle. Turbulence shook the plane and Dean fell against one of the seats. He gripped its edge to keep him up, slamming his fist into the seat across from him. I grinned and turned back around in my seat to face Sam who shook his head in mild amusement.

"Think he's going to be okay?" He asked.

"I doubt it," I admitted, moving more comfortable against the grooves of the seat.

"You ever been in a plane before?" He wondered, still leaning over Dean's seat to face me. I looked over at him, his bangs falling into his eyes and framing his face. I dug my fingers into my palm – taunting the still not healed cuts from the wire – to keep from reaching out and brushing them back.

"Once or twice when I was a kid," I shrugged, the experiences cut down to fragmented memories of a small girl in black, silent and curled up in her seat.

"Let me guess … you were the kid causing trouble?" He asked with a smirk and laugh. I let out a small laugh myself, more out of the fact that I enjoyed his smile then the fact that he was wrong.

"No, I was the brooding little girl curled in her seat, minding her own business," I informed him, glancing back over. He nodded slowly; the dimmed lights skimming over his eyes and making them sparkle like dust in the sunlight.

"Sounds a bit like you," he admitted. I nodded, a hand skimming my back and alerting me of fear taking over a usual sarcastic persona. Dean gripped the back of my seat and sat back down his own, removing his hand and taking a mild breath of relief that he made it.

"Alright. Well, she's gotta be the most well-adjusted person on the planet," he summed up, shifting more comfortably in his seat.

"You said Deus?" I asked, leaning over my arm rest and having it dig unfortunately into my chest.

"Yeah," he sighed.

"And?" Sam wondered, also leaning in closer to him.

"There's no demon in her," Dean summed up, finally finding minimal comfort in his seat. "There's no demon getting in her."

"So if it's on the plane, it could be anyone, anywhere," I pointed out, scanning the crowd. A violent jerk shook the plane, the parts of it rattling with little confidence in themselves. My heart picked up its pace in my chest somewhat, alerting me that I may be more nervous than I thought.

"Come on, that can't be normal," Dean grinded out through his teeth, his nerves setting him dangerously on edge.

"Hey, hey. It's just a little turbulence," Sam assured him soothingly.

"Sam, this plane is going to crash okay. So quit treating me like I'm frigging four," Dean snapped at him in a hurried whisper, his white knuckles clenching his arm rest.

"You need to calm down," Sam calmly informed him.

"Well, I'm sorry, I can't," Dean snapped back, his breaths coming in quick and panicked.

"Yes you can," Sam continued calmly.

"Dude, stow the touchy-feely, self-help yoga crap. It's not helping," Dean insisted, razor sharp nerves coming loose in his skull.

"You're panicked you're wide open to demonic possession," Sam pointed out, taking more quietly and with an edge to his otherwise peaceful tone. "So you need to calm yourself down, right now." Dean nodded slowly, parting his lips and exhaling deeply, his breath trembling.

"Good," Sam said, his patience fraying. Dean turned away from Sam, still breathing deeply, and glanced over at me.

"Can I hold your hand now?" He wondered innocently.

"Now …," Sam said, cutting whatever answer I had off with a biting tone. "I found an exorcism in here that I think is gonna work. The _Rituale Romanum."_

"What do we have to do?" I asked, leaning over the aisle to hear better.

"It's two parts," he sighed, holding the open pages of his dad's journal carefully. "The first part expels the demon from the victim's body. It makes it manifest, which actually makes it more powerful …"

"It would," I said dryly, Sam smirking slightly.

"More powerful?" Dean repeated body still clenched with attempted calm. "How?"  
>"It doesn't need to possess someone anymore. It can just wreck havoc on its own," Sam explained patiently.<p>

"And how is that a good thing?" I wondered.

"Well …," said Sam, turning back to the journal. "…Because the second part … sends the bastard back to hell, once and for all."

"Well, first things first we gotta find it," Dean sighed, jumping back to the missing first step.

I unevenly stepped over the narrow aisle, edges of bags and feet sticking out and forming an obstacle course for me to follow. It wasn't like this was hard enough to begin with or anything … I skimmed my fingers over the shoulder of a woman next to me, her eyes rising at me with confusion and disgust. Husband, kids, job, affair …oh … nice. I sidestepped over a bag, fingers skimming the man at an angle from her. Money, money, new car, money, cat … Nothing interesting about him, though the cat was a surprise. I reached the end of the aisle, turning against the barely curtained door. Dean walked over, head bowed and examining the E.M.F. meter in his hands. He glanced up as he saw me and stopped in front, running his finger over the dials.

"Anything?" He wondered. I shook my head, Sam walking up behind him and clamping a hand on his shoulder, making Dean jerk violently.

"Oh, man don't do that," he said through his teeth.

"Anything?" Sam wondered, ignoring his comment.

"No, nothing," Dean answered, Sam glancing over at me with the same question in his eyes. I shook my head. What kind of guy thinks of money, a new car and a _cat_? "How much time we got?"

"Fifteen minutes," Sam replied, glancing down quickly at his watch. "Maybe we missed somebody." Dean glanced behind him, taking in the sight of the passengers for any sign that he missed one.

"Maybe the thing's just not on the plane," he suggested weakly.

"You believe that?" I asked, leaning against the doorway, the curtain catching up beneath me. Dean turned to face me, desperation on his face for his words to be real.

"Well, I will if you will," he pointed out, a smirk pulling out at his lips. A red glow reflected from beneath me and I looked down at the meter still in his hands, the lights on it blaring brightly. I looked up again, glancing behind me as the bathroom door opened and a man in uniform walking out. He nodded and smiled at us in greeting, turning to the door to the cockpit.

"What? What is it?" Sam asked, not seeing the red lights or almost inaudible hum.

"Deus," he said with dead calm. The man paused, a tremble moving through his shoulders and he turned back, his eyes glowing black. I swallowed hard, a dryness coating my mouth and throat. He smirked and turned back around, walking into the cockpit and locking the door behind.

"She's not gonna believe this," Sam insisted, shaking his head and moving rapidly through the seats ahead of me.

"Twelve minutes, dude," Dean reminded him from behind me. Sam ignored him and moved through the doorway, stepping back so that I could move through. Amanda turned around from where she stood a polite smile on her lips.

"Oh hi," she smiled, recognizing Dean. "Flights not to bumpy for you I hope."

"Actually that's kind of what we need to talk to you about," Dean nervously said, Sam jerking the curtain closed behind me and grazing the side of my head. My hair shifted with the movement and I involuntarily shivered.

"Um, okay," she said, not fully understanding. "What can I do for you?"

"All right, this is going to sound nuts," Dean warned, his eyes darting around to make sure no one else was listening. "But we just don't have time for the whole "the truth is out there" speech right now …"

"All right, look," I interrupted, putting a hand on his arm and pushing him aside. Man claims that we have twelve minutes left and stalls. "We know you were on flight 4285." She stared at me for a moment, taking a step back with growing suspicion and fear.

"Who are you guys?" she asked, attempting to remain calm.

"Now," Sam started, picking up where I left off. "We've spoken to the other survivors. We know something brought down that plane and we know it wasn't mechanical failure."

"And we need your help," Dean cut in. "Because we need to stop it from happening again. Here. Now."

"I'm sorry, I'm very busy," she stumbled, bowing her head and making a move to the door. "I have to go …"

"Whoa, whoa," Dean interrupted, putting his hands on his shoulders and pushing her back, Sam's girth alone blocking the door. "Wait a second. I'm not gonna hurt you, okay? But listen to me. Um, the pilot from 2485, Chuck Lambert? He's dead."

"W … What? Chuck's dead?" she demanded, trying to make sense of what was going on and failing in the process.

"He died in a plane crash," I quickly explained. "Now that's two plane crashes in two months. That doesn't strike you as strange?"

"I … I," she attempted.

"Look," Sam began, running his fingers through his hair with irritation at how slowly the situation was moving. "Something was wrong with 2485. Maybe you sensed it, maybe you didn't. But there's something wrong with this flight too."

"Amanda you have to believe us," Dean insisted, bordering on desperate. She glanced between the three of us, words shaping and collapsing on her lips as she struggled to piece together a reasonable explanation without shattering all she thought she knew.

"On … on 2485, there was this, uh … this man. He … had these eyes," she attempted, looking up at us and struggling.

"Yes," Sam cut in, excited to be finally getting somewhere. "That's exactly what we're talking about."

"Well, I don't understand. What are you asking me to do?" She demanded, becoming frustrated.

"Bring the copilot back here," I answered.

"What? What does he have to do with anything?" She demanded, losing her frustration and growing fearful again.

"Don't have time to explain," I insisted, resisting the urge to glance at Sam's watch. "We just need to talk to him, okay?"

"Well how am I supposed to go into the cockpit and get the copil …," she asked, gaining on hysterical.

"Do whatever it takes," Sam pleaded. "Tell him there's something broken back here. Whatever will get him out."

"Do you know that I can lose my job if …," she started, further stalling the situation.

"You could lose a lot more if you don't help us out," I said through my teeth, adrenaline and anticipation flaring in my blood and making it heat. A fire wouldn't be particularly helpful at the moment. She looked from the three of us again, begging us silently for a last minute "ha, ha fooled you."

"Okay," she whispered, sensing what she was begging for wasn't going to come. She moved past us and pulled back the curtain, walking through with the barest of trembles to acknowledge how scared she really was. Dean peered through the curtains to watch her go, the barest strip of light illuminating his face and the tiny details on it. He waited, silently watching and his eyes darting as he followed the movements Amanda was making.

"They're coming," he quietly said, pulling away and digging through his jacket. Sam dug through his own and pulled out the bottle of Holy water and held it out to me. I carefully took it, the plastic crinkling under my hands. Dean held the journal out to Sam who took it and started rapidly flipping through the pages. The curtains parted.

"Now, what's the problem?" The copilot asked, moving through the fabric. Dean's fist slammed out from the side and smashed into the side of his face, throwing him against the wall. Dean rushed after him, grabbing onto his tie and slamming him back down onto the ground. I rushed over, the uneven floor sliding under my feet, and dropped down beside him.

"Hold him," Dean grunted, digging through his jacket and trying to hold him down at the same time. I kneeled half on top of him, my knee purposefully digging into his ribs as he grunted with pain. Dean pulled out a roll of duck tape and ripped off a section, smoothing it over the copilot's mouth.

"What, what are you doing?" Amanda demanded in a panic, Sam bolting over beside the three of us. "You said you were just gonna talk to him."  
>"We are, just forcefully," I said through my teeth, my hands gripping onto his forearms to hold him down. His body jerked underneath the multiple pressures, his face becoming red with exertion. Sam grabbed the water bottle beside me and squirted water onto him, steam burst up off his skin and clothes, burning holes through both.<p>

"Oh, my God. What's wrong with him?" Amanda asked, her breath coming in faster as she started to full on panic.

"Look, we need you calm," Sam informed her, drawing his attention briefly away. "We need you outside the curtain." The copilot's body jerked beneath me again, shifting back and forth violently. Man it was like trying to hold onto a freaking fish. "Don't let anybody in, okay? Can you do that?" She stammered unhelpfully. "Amanda?"  
>"Okay, okay," she finally said, her footsteps retreating to behind the curtain. Dean slammed his fist into the copilots face again, the action doing little good as he continued to convulse.<p>

"Hurry up, Sam," he grunted. "I don't know how much longer I can hold him." Sam splashed more water on the copilot, his shirt now stained through and the steam clouding the small space. He pulled out the journal and started to read, saying the Latin words with ease like he had spoken them often. The water bottle snapped away from us, skidding across the floor and the copilot forced his arms free and shoved me. I fell back and hit my head against the wall, a crash echoing next to me. Red hot pain pounded in my head and I blinked back the color, everything swaying nauseatingly. Now would not be a good time to pass out. I dragged myself over, everything dancing out of shape, and he shoved me again, harder this time. I hit the wall again, the corner of it slicing into my back.

"Son of a bitch," I swore, grabbing onto the edge and pulling myself to my feet. The ground moved unevenly beneath my feet and I dropped beside the copilot again, his attention on Sam and his black eyes alive with anger and hate. I pounded my fist through his face, the connection of flesh on flesh clearing my head with satisfaction. Dean fell next to me, holding down his body with exertion, Sam watching the two of us with detachment and horror.

"Sam," I half yelled, the pounding in my head returning and echoing in my ears. Sam shook himself free of his stupor and continued to read, his fingers moving down the page. The copilot's body twisted more angrily and Sam dropped the book to help hold him down. Steam rose more vividly, my hands slipping and sliding over his soaked through shirt. His back arched and powdery black smoke burst through his mouth and twisted through the air. He collapsed back onto the ground, the smoke screeching and roaring as it moved.

"Where'd it go?" Sam asked as I let go of the now comatose pilot, my hands chafed from holding the wet fabric and tensed with the movement of holding them stiff.

"It's in the plane," panted Dean. "Hurry up, we gotta finish it." He patted Sam on the back to get him to move and he stumbled through the curtain. I leaned back against the wall, my breath pressing blunt knives in my chest as I gasped to reclaim it. Man I could use a beer.

"You okay?" Dean worriedly asked, still gasping and panting. I turned to him, my lips parted to answer when the floor disappeared beneath me.

The floor collided again with my body and I hit it hard, the copilots arm softening a small section of my back. Roaring and screaming flooded my ears, everything moving violently with darkness and light slashing my vision. Dean gave a short yell next to me, his shape barely visible against the emergency door. Everything was shuddering, moving out of place with one another and I pushed against the floor, the feel of it vanishing and reappearing rapidly. A loud crash echoed next to me and Dean yelled loudly, his face visible in a flash of lightning. His face was twisted with terror, his shirt whipping with the wind and papers blowing from who knows where. I twisted myself onto my front and dragged myself over, the floor moving dizzyingly and bruising my stomach. I really needed a beer. I slid over to where he lay, plastered against the wall, and half pulled myself to my knees.

"Dean," I yelled above the noise and my hands found his face, his mouth wide open as he screamed. "Dean … Dean listen to me!" He half turned to look at me, still yelling in a way that would be comical if it weren't for the fact that we were all about to die. "Listen to me it's okay. It's okay. It's going to be okay." My lack of faith in the words made them seem hollow but he stopped yelling, his face however still twisted in horror and bone deep panic. "Dean it's alright. Just look at me. Look at me! Look at my eyes." I shifted my hands over his face, the bristles of his checks rough on my palms and I held them over his temples, my fingers half twisted in his hair. "Look at my eyes. Okay? Look at me." His eyes settled into mine, his terrified gaze locking onto my one of forced calm. Terror seeped through his mind, memories and last minute prayers breaking through. "Do I look scared? Do I look scared?" He barely shook his head, his face moving unevenly in my hands. "No, no because it's going to be okay. I am not going to let anything happen to you. You hear me? I will die before I let anything happen to you, okay? Okay? Do you hear me?" He nodded violently, swallowing hard. "I need you to calm down, okay? Nothing's going to happen to you but I need you to calm down. Can you do that for me?" He shook his head, his eyes alive with still beating terror. "Yes you can. I know you can, Dean. I need you to look at me. It's going to be okay. Just breathe, okay? Just breathe." He barely nodded and his lips parted as he exhaled, his breath trembling. He swallowed hard and exhaled again, his breath a fraction more calm this time. "That's good. Just breathe Dean. That's all I'm asking, just breath. It's going to be okay, just breathe." He tried again, his lips shaking with the movement and snaps of lightning suddenly twisted over the plane and blinding me with light. I closed my eyes against it, the brightness seeping through my eyelids, my hands still on Dean's face. Everything slowed down, the movement and trembling of the plane smoothing out as it righted itself like nothing happened. I opened my eyes, the jerking of the plane evening out and everything falling back into place. Dean continued to stare at me, his face still twisted with terror that was slowly ebbing. "You're doing good." I reminded him, readjusting my hands on his face that had become sticky with sweat. "That's it, just breathe. It's okay. You're doing great. Just breathe." He took another deep breath, the sound of it shaking but the terror inside him ebbing away like the ocean smoothing out the rough edges of a stone. "That's great. Just breathe. Just breathe." He continued, his eyes still fixated on my face and the feel of them dancing over my skin. The light returned to the ceiling and softened down his eyes, the terror gone and a look in that took me in with an expression that seemed unnaturally warm. Awareness shook me, the fact that I was kneeling between his legs with my hands on his face, and brought me back into the moment. I lowered my hands from his face, my hands skimming the top of his jacket and I quickly drew them back to me, my fingers trembling.

"Just breathe," I reminded him, taking in my own breath, my whole body exhausted. He took another breath, still staring at me with the same expression. "Just breathe." He nodded, swallowing hard. I nodded as well and stood, my legs shaking and walked to the doorway, my fingers grasping at the wall to keep from falling. I pushed through the curtain, debris and luggage crashed everywhere with the passengers righting themselves and looking around in still partial terror. Sam slowly stood up from the middle of the aisle, his shoulders rising and falling quickly with his breath. Relief collapsed inside me and he turned, taking sight of me and pausing with the same relief. I managed a tired smile, the only thought, the only thing that mattered … the fact that he was alive.

Chatter danced around me indistinctly, similar phrases reaching out and claiming a difference. I adjusted my footing on the ground, the feel of it still uneven and my head pounding from the collision and thoughts that I was too tired to block out. Amanda stood a few steps away with a police officer, her pale skin standing out from her uniform as she spoke quietly. She glanced up and saw us, a small smile torn between relief and gratitude on her lips.

"Thank you," she mouthed. Dean nodded in response, his body barely a breath away from mine.

"Let's get out of here," he suggested, his hand closing over my arm and gently moving me forward. I followed his lead with a slight stumble, everything still swaying with remembrance.

"You okay?" Dean asked worriedly, his expression warm and soft the way he had been on the plane.

"Yeah, just dizzy," I insisted, shifting my bag over my shoulder and casually moving out of his grip.

"We could take you to the paramedics," he offered, gesturing behind him at the crew of them moving through the crowd. "We'd wait."

"Its fine," I insisted with more force, brushing my hair over my face to cover it.

"Alright, what about you?" He wondered, drawing his attention to Sam, silently walking beside us. Sam slowed his steps, turning to stop in front of us with words he was fighting over ready to burst.

"He knew about Jessica," he said, speaking through his lips with barely contained emotion.

"Sam, these things, they … they read minds," Dean persisted with confidence. "They lie. All right? That's all it was."

"Yeah," Sam barely whispered no conviction in his voice. I broke free of my restrictions and reached a hand out to him and lay it on his arm. He looked down at it; my fingers uncertainly sprawled over the creases in his jacket.

"Come on," Dean said forcefully, moving past the two of us.

"Nobody knows what you guys did, But I do," Jerry said matter of factly, his hands loosely placed on his hips. I guess no trophy then. Dean nodded in acknowledgment, leaning casually back against the Impala.

"A lot of people could have been killed," Jerry continued and held out his hand for Sam to shake. "You're dads gonna be real proud." He dropped his hand from Sam's grasp and held it out to Dean who also shook it. He turned to me, considering for a second, before holding his hand out in acceptance of who I was and what I did. I also reached out and shook it, the deep lines in his hand betraying great use. Gratitude, exhaustion and the slightest bit of skepticism broke through … no hair replacement though.

"We'll see you around, Jerry," Sam politely said as Jerry dropped my hand. He nodded and walked away, arms swinging with his movement and the sense of a "job, well done" in his step. Dean walked around the front of the Impala before stopping and turning back to Jerry's retreating back.

"Hey, you know Jerry," he called, Jerry half turning at the sound of his name.

"Yeah?" He called.

"I meant to ask you, how did you get my cell phone number, anyway?" Dean wondered, his arms open with the question. "I've only had it for like six months."

"Your dad gave it to me," Jerry answered simply.

"What?" Sam demanded, fully turning.

"When'd you talk to him?" Dean asked with attempted calm, straightening against the Impala.

"Well, I mean I didn't exactly talk to him," Jerry backtracked. "But, uh … called his number, his voice message said to give you a call." Sam and Dean stared at him in torn disbelief and hope.

"Thanks again, guys," Jerry thanked, turning again and retreating back into the shed. Sam spun around to face Dean, swallowing hard against everything that was most likely building in his chest.

"This doesn't make any sense, man," Sam pointed out, hands tucked deep into his pockets. "I've called dad's number like 50 times. It's been out of service." Dean ignored him, hurriedly pressing keys on his phone and holding it up to his ear with a determined look on his face. I shifted on the surface of the bumper, adjusting the lay of my arms over my knees. A warm breeze wafted through the air, travelling with it the sound of a plane flying overhead, brushing back my hair and allowing the sun to shine better on my face. Dean awkwardly leaned into Sam, pulling back somewhat and gesturing for me to lean in and listen. I shifted closer, moving onto my knees and between their heads, the grainy sound of a voice message barely audible.

" … I can't be reached. If this is an emergency, call my son, Dean. (785) 555-0179. He can help," the message clicked off, the gravelly voice – torn half between hung-over and tired –cutting off abruptly. Dean pulled the phone away and clicked it shut, staring down at it in his hands. Sam turned away, the sun catching at his eyes and illuminating the tears hanging in them. An ache contracted in my stomach, clenching my insides in its grasp at the sight and I cautiously reached out a hand and lay it on his shoulder. He turned to look up at me, the half formed tears like orbs in his eyes and his expression broken with hope and desperation. He attempted a smile that trembled on the corners and nodded, acknowledging my attempt. I tried to smile back and dropped my hand, my fingers absent mindedly grazing down his back. He pulled himself off the bumper and moved around to the front of the Impala, his steps hurried like he was holding back. A gust of wind twisted my hair and I untangled my legs and stood up, pins and needles in them making the ground feel still uneven.

"Uh, Kate?" Dean asked uncertainly and I turned back to face him. He ran a hand over his face with thought, uneasily moving closer. He stopped close to me, looking back at the front seat where Sam's head was visible through the rear window. "I uh … I wanted to thank you." He drew his hand away from his face and thrust them awkwardly into his front pockets, squinting at the sunlight which I could feel framing me.

"For what?" I asked, crossing my arms, the wind tugging at the bottom of my jacket and flapping it nosily in the wind.

"For, uh …," he stumbled, searching for the right words. "For on the plane." He bowed his head in embarrassment, ashamed like he was a little boy being scolded by a teacher. It swelled warmly in my chest and I smiled, un-tucking my arm and sweeping my hair back from my face.

"No problem," I insisted. He looked up, surprised that I hadn't snapped at him or something similar.

"I mean … it was really helpful what you did and it really helped me out and …," he trailed off, rambling and smiled in warm appreciation that twisted with the same embarrassment. "Just thanks."

"You're welcome," I answered, re-crossing my arm with the wind tangling my hair over my face. Life was too short for me to sweep it back again. He nodded, laughing slightly under his breath.

"And just so we're clear … you won't tell anyone, will you?" He asked, worry edging out his tone. I laughed again, the environment a perfect background to my answer.

"Who would I tell?" I demanded, the truth behind the fact not affecting me as much as it would with someone else. I had the two of them and … and that was alright. It was more then I had ever had and … it was nice. "I promise I won't tell." He grinned in further appreciation, the look in his eyes from the plane returning and turning them soft with the addition of the sun. He sighed deeply, looking out over the dusty road and darkening field on the other side.

"You up for a beer?" He wondered, turning back.

"Finally, yes," I said in relief and he laughed in agreement. I smiled the feel of it so frequently on my lips unnatural and I turned to the back seat, the crusted dirt crumbling underneath my shoes.


	5. 105 Bloody Mary

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the character and the relationships she develops.

"Kate," A voice yelled and I snapped, my head jerking forward off the back of the seat and the grooves of it leaving the memory on my neck. Sunlight cut through my vision, reflecting off the metal of the car and blinding me with vibrant colors. I blinked, somewhat dazed, and Dean grinned at me from the rearview mirror.

"Morning, sunshine," he greeted, only his eyes and the corner of his lips visible through the cut of the mirror. "How was your sleep?"  
>"Bite me," I said through my teeth, shifting on the seat and the belt cutting and twisting into my stomach.<p>

"Always an option," he acknowledged, turning his gaze to look out through the window. I rolled my eyes and unbuckled the seat belt, pins and needles awakening under my skin with the feel of blood rushing back into my limbs. I shifted forward on the seat to the edge, the back of my neck seizing with the unfortunate position I had fallen asleep in. I rubbed at it with annoyance, my fingers grazing over a somewhat raised burn that had engraved itself on the nape.

"How was your sleep?" Sam asked and I looked up, my fingers still tensed over the mark, the memory. He was staring at me warmly, his eyes broken with different emotions that I had difficulty fully reading.

"Peachy," I informed him; dropping my hand and letting it fall onto my knee, the fabric of my jeans twisted over it. "Yours?"

"Peachy," he answered, stumbling slightly on the start of the word as he tried to gain an appropriate grasp on it. I smiled slightly, the feel of my stiff muscles fading out into the edges of my mind. Dean's form shifted in the corner of my eye and I turned to face him, leaning against the door with his arm thrown over the back of his seat and an amused grin on his face.

"Hello," he grinned, a sense of smugness written into him, the knowledge that he knew something that we didn't. I really couldn't handle him before my morning coffee. Or beer.

"Where are we?" I asked, adjusting my jacket around me.

"Toledo, Ohio," Sam said, turning around in his seat, pulling the newspaper into his lap. The sun faded the words and pictures, the almost invisible markered circle around a photo barely standing out. I barely leaned forward, Sam's shoulder resting against mine and my entire body humming with the acknowledgment.

"How'd he die?" I asked, scanning over the generic words with less than partial interest.

"That's what we're gonna find out," Dean said, rummaging with something beneath my line of eyesight. "Let's go."

Patterns of isolated light shone through the windows and cast an eerie glow that illuminated the dust in the air. I tucked my hands deeper into my pockets and grazed my fingers over a crumbled piece of paper lodged in the corner. Time to deal with that later.

"Here," Sam barely whispered, his body barely turning me and directing me to an open door with the words "Morgue, 144." Dean ducked in first, his head turning and the sun catching over his face, softening down the edges. I walked after, the polished floors echoing my footsteps. A bald man in scrubs looked up from his desk, mildly interested at our arrival.

"Hey," he said, his hand moving away from where it had been used to rest his chin.

"Hey," Dean grinned, charm working its way through his body with irritating ease.

"Can I help you?" He wondered, straightening in his chair.

"Yeah. We're the uh … med students," Dean explained, gesturing between the three of us.

"Sorry?" The man asked in confusion. Yeah, Dean wasn't smart looking enough to pass off as a med student.

"Oh, Doctor Feiklowic didn't tell you?" Dean asked in mock confusion, stumbling somewhat over the name. "We talked to him on the phone. He … we're from Ohio State. He's supposed to show us the Shoemaker corpse. It's for our paper."

"Well I'm sorry, he's at lunch," he said, no amount of apology in his voice.

"Oh, well he said uh … oh well, you know it doesn't matter," Dean stumbled around, half intentional and half not. "You don't mind showing us the body do you?"

"Sorry, I can't," he pointed out, apology still devoid from his voice. "Doc will be back in an hour, you can wait for him if you want." Long lunch.

"An hour?" Dean repeated, sucking in his breath. "We gotta be heading back to Columbus by then." He looked at me to confirm his story. Why? He had been doing so well by himself.

"Yeah," I said, turning back and adjusting the way my arms folded across my chest.

"It's our, uh … engagement dinner tonight," Dean continued, gesturing to the two of us. What ….? "Can't be late, can we sweetie?" He looked down at me, a smug grin crossing his lips and growing to pull his body into a similar looking stance. Would it ruin the illusion if I punched him?

"Nope," I said, returning my gaze to the man, most likely sensing my oozing hostility. "Wouldn't want to miss it."

"Look, man, this paper's half our grade," Dean attempted, not sensing leeway in the "engagement" effort. "So if you don't mind helping us out …"  
>"Oh look man, no," he said with more force, his eyes bulging at the corners somewhat and giving him the appearance of an unattractive fish. Dean ducked his head and chuckled somewhat, the noise a contrast between disbelief and frustration that was hidden poorly.<p>

"I'm gonna hit him in his face, I swear," Dean mumbled between his teeth, barely turning to Sam to make himself almost unheard. As well as this was going I should probably step in. I took a step closer to the desk, my footstep making a pronounced noise in the air and reached into the collar of my shirt. I skimmed the edges of the fraying bills in the lining of my bra and slid out several, the worn edges threatening to rip in my fingers. 20, 40, 60 … was this guy worth 80? I glanced up at him, his eyes even wider and his face glued to where I had produced the bills. Definitely not. I tossed the three bills onto the desk where they splayed out over the papers and tucked the others into my back pocket. The man removed his eyes from my chest and down to the bills, sweeping a hand out and gathering them into his fist.

"Follow me," he said in sudden professionalism that contradicted how easy it had been to bribe him. He moved around the edge of the desk and I turned to follow his movements, catching the sight of Sam and Dean in the corner of my vision. I turned to better take them in, the two of them staring at me with a mixture of shock and slight awe.

"Never send a man to do a woman's job," I said simply and turned to follow the morgue technician.

"Now the newspaper said his daughter found him. She said his eyes were bleeding," Sam said, half questions in his voice as he glanced between Dean and the technician for any sign of confirmation.

"More than that. They practically liquefied," the technician said with almost twisted intrigue, pulling back the sheet. I tilted my head slightly, Mr. Shoemakers pasty white face better cutting into my vision, his eyes empty red pits. Well … that was gross.

"Any sign of a struggle?" Dean asked, recovering from his sharp intake of shock and disgust. "Maybe somebody did it to him?"  
>"Nope," the technician said shortly. "Besides the daughter, he was all alone."<p>

"What's the official cause of death?" I asked readjusting my gaze so that Mr. Shoemakers face faded somewhat from my view.

"Doc's not sure," the technician said with a sigh. "He's thinking massive stroke, maybe an aneurysm? Something burst up in there, that's for sure." Well, when he said it like that it made it sound like a pipe bursting or something.

"What do you mean?" Sam asked curiously.

"Intense cerebral bleeding," he half whispered, making it sound like a twisted secret instead of a medical term. "This guy had more blood in his skull than anyone I've ever seen."

"But the eyes. What would cause something like that?" Sam asked, a need to understand pulling at his voice. I looked over at him, half his face in shadow and darkening the curls that framed his face. Longing choked in my throat and I turned away, forcing my gaze back into the empty bloody pits of Mr. Shoemakers face. Who the hell had a last name like Mr. Shoemaker anyway?

"Capillaries …" Caterpillars? "…Can burst. I see a lot of bloodshot eyes with stroke victims," he shrugged.

"And do many of them have exploding eyeballs?" I curiously asked, the longing in my throat sharpening my tone. Dean snorted behind me.

"This is a first for me," the technician admitted with a partial smile. "But hey, I'm not a doctor."

"Hey, think we could take a look at that police report?" Dean wondered. "You know, for uh … our paper." He added the last few words like an afterthought.

"I'm really … not supposed to show you that," he said, a suggestion in his voice to the contrary. He looked over at me, a slight shrug to his shoulders as if to say "if you want it …" I exhaled deeply, un-digging one of my hands from my jacket and sliding it into my back pocket, the crumbled edges of the bills sticking out.

"Might not be one of ours," Sam suggested, jogging slightly down the wide steps. "Might just be some freak medical thing." Yeah, right. Exploding eyeballs, coming to a hospital near you.

"How many times in dad's long and varied career has it actually been a freak medical thing?" Dean asked, turning down the platform and skimming his hand over the hand print littered railing. "And not some sign of an awful supernatural death?"  
>"Uh, almost never," Sam admitted, turning on the platform and glancing around him at the nearly empty stairwell, the slowly rising sun cutting shapes of light and dark over the stairs. His eyes caressed over me and I felt myself involuntarily shiver.<p>

"Exactly," said Dean, oblivious to the miniscule exchange behind him, ducking under the next stairwell and blending into the brief shadows.

"All right, let's go talk to the daughter," Sam said with a sigh, stepping onto the next platform and the sun shining through the glass, bathing him in a soft glow.

I stepped up from the wrinkled stone path and into the house, the sound of clattering plates and polite chatter greeting my ears with the hint of a different environment that I was used to. Or even allowed into. I scanned over the room, the pale yellow walls reflecting the shattered sunlight and painting its glow over the darkened, heavy furniture. Men and women in black sat amongst them with delicate plates of food balanced on their laps and solemn expressions that didn't waver. Well … we certainly blended in.

"I feel like we're undressed," Dean voiced matter of factly with a mild smirk that caught the right blend between solemn for the occasion and humorous for the fact. He sauntered forward and I followed, a woman in a black turtleneck grazing my arm. Boredom and obligation swirled through her like shifting sand and I glanced back, Sam suddenly at my arm in a single step that had taken me multiple to achieve. Dean sighed ahead of me, walking into a more crowded room with more shades of light glistening through the multiple windows and reflecting off the multiple people in more forms of black. Huh, it was almost like they had planned the color scheme beforehand.

"Um, excuse me?" Sam politely asked, leaning toward an elderly man with glasses, a half-empty wine glass clutched in his hands. "Do you know where we can find Lily and Donna?"

"Um, yeah they're right outside," he answered, turning away from the young woman that he was speaking to. "I can show you." He turned back to the woman and gently touched her arm comfortingly. "It was lovely speaking to you." She nodded with a timid smile and moved away and disappeared into the sea of shade. He moved through the crowd to the door, Sam placing an arm on my shoulder and urging me forward slightly. Goosebumps ghosted over my skin and I followed, my heart aching dizzyingly in my chest. I stepped out onto the back porch, the boards of it creaking under my feet and the sun stenciling the shapes of the leaves over the grass.

"Right there," the man said, pointing to several girls huddled together in a small collaboration of chairs and tables, glasses of wine on top with varying degrees of liquid inside.

"Thank you," Sam called after the man and stepped down onto the grass after me. It crunched with the promise of decay and added background noise to the continued polite chatter that hung around in the air like a misted scent. A blonde girl in one of the chairs looked up and gaped at Sam and Dean in exaggerated interest, her fingernails delicately placed together with the suggestion that she had just painted them. Sam smiled at her politely and jealousy burned uncomfortably in my chest like a breath caught after a long run.

"You must be Donna, right?" Dean asked, addressing the brunette and dropping his voice to a more professional sounding level. Or at least as professional as he could manage without popping a blood vessel.

"Yeah," she said, squinting up against the light. Huh, good guess.

"Hi. Uh, we're really sorry," Sam with a polite awkwardness, alternating between tucking his hand into his jacket and jean pocket.

"Thank you," she nodded, the words rolling off her tongue like they had been said too often but with a softened edge of sincerity still remaining.

"I'm Sam," he continued, his voice gentle and shivering shades of warmth and cold through me. "This is Dean and this is Kate." I half-heartedly waved. "We worked with your dad." Donna glanced over at her friend with a mingle of confusion and surprise before turning back.

"You did?" She asked, somewhat breathless.

"Yeah," said Dean casually, missing the sound of his own voice. "This whole thing … I mean a stroke." Donna bowed her head with obvious discomfort, her fingers awkwardly lacing together in the sheer folds of her dress. Smooth Dean, smooth.

"I don't think she really wants to talk about this right now," her friend advised a sharpened edge to her voice that balanced between politeness and "go the fuck away."

"It's okay. I'm okay," Donna insisted, squinting slightly and her freckles gathering together. Dean glanced between the two of them, his jaw working as he silently thought over his next words.

"Were there ever any symptoms?" He wondered, his brow furrowed with thought. "Dizziness? Migraines?"

"No," Donna said after a short moment of consideration. The girl on the other side of her turned, her hair gracefully following.

"That's because it wasn't a stroke," she insisted with softened determination and fear.

"Lily, don't say that," Donna said in sweet comfort, turning to her sister soothingly.

"What?" I asked curiously, the conversation finally going somewhere. Donna looked up at us with a slight embarrassment that she hid beneath a forced smile.  
>"I'm sorry, she's just upset," she insisted, the sun glinting off the tips of her hair and darkening them gold.<p>

"No, it happened because of me," Lily persisted, her eyes shimmering wet with frustration and loss.

"Sweetie, it didn't," Donna assured her, her head shaking slowly with an exhaustion that surpassed physical.

"Lily …," Sam began, easily back tracking behind the seat holding the purple nailed blonde and over to where Lily sat, her face drawn with guilt and her hair framing it. He knelt to her height, his hands loosely clasped in front of him. "Why would you say something like that?"  
>"Right before he died, I said it," she said quietly, her brow furrowed with worry that he wouldn't believe her.<p>

"Said what?" Sam sweetly asked his eyes so gentle that it tore into my chest like wet glass.

"Bloody Mary." Three times in the bathroom mirror," she answered, her voice softening and fading to a whisper on the last word. Sam stared at her, slowly processing the words and Dean glanced over at me, searching for my reaction. It did make partial sense, at least with the exploding eyeballs part …

"She took his eyes. That's what she does," Lily continued, using her fractured evidence to back up her claim.

"That's not why dad died. This isn't your fault," Donna broke in, Lily turning to her with her eyes painfully sad.

"I think your sisters right, Lily," Dean interrupted, Lily now turning to him, her shoulders crumbling with our lack of belief. "There's no way it could have been Bloody Mary. Your dad didn't say it, did he?" He cut in the last part with heavier implication and question.

"No, I don't think so," Lily sadly admitted, looking up at him with quiet defeat. Dean nodded with an almost smug "problem solved" look, followed by a "no need to thank me" shrug.

The sound of my footprints echoed neatly on the floor, the bare walls adding sharpness to the noise. The dim light cast elongated shadows over the floor and pale walls, crinkling them over the occasional painting or mirror. This guy had had a very boring decorator. Sam paused in front of me at a partially open door, the false crystallized handle catching glimmers of rainbow color. He gently pushed on it and it swung open with an ominous creak. More faded light poured through and added shade to the white fixtures and walls, faded blood stains smeared over the artfully cracked tiles.

"The Bloody Mary Legend," Sam breathed with a sacred respect in his voice. "Dad ever find any evidence that it was the real thing?"

"Not that I know of," Dean said, shaking his head. I stepped forward inside, the tile bubbling underneath my feet and crackling. The splintered light from the blinds awkwardly cast my shadow and over the multiple tints of white bathroom fixtures. Dark white sink, slightly less dark bathroom cabinet, slightly light white towels … it was somewhat nauseating.

"I mean, everywhere else," Sam carried on, kneeling to the floor and running his finger over the faint stain. "All over the country, kids play … Bloody Mary and as far as we know nobody does from it." He re-stood and moved inside, standing close behind me and the hairs standing up on the back of my neck like when a gentle breeze teases them awake.

"Yeah, well, maybe everywhere else it's just a story," Dean suggested, glancing over at us and back to the varying lightened and darkened shades. "But here it's actually happening."

"The place where the Legend began?" Sam wondered, his voice again hushed with reverence. Dean shrugged, less then partially caring and moving over to the cabinet. He swung it open, the reflection catching Sam and a sliver of myself.

"But according to the Legend, the person who says …," Sam started, catching himself in the mirror and pushing it close with annoyance. "The person who says you-know-what, get's it. But here …"

"Shoemaker gets it instead," I finished, arms crossed over my chest. Seriously, who had a last name Shoemaker? Besides – of course – a shoemaker.

"Right," Sam nodded, looking down over at me with a pensive stare. I turned away, feeling vulnerable in a million different ways I didn't understand or like.

"Never heard anything like that before," Dean said his voice on the edge of sarcasm where it usually tumbled. He glanced over with a sudden forming thought. "Still, the guy did die right in front of the mirror. And the daughter's right. I mean, the way the Legend goes, you-know-who scratches your eyes out." He finished with a disbelieving smile that almost broke into sinister amusement.

"It's worth checking into," Sam voiced solemnly, echoed footsteps overlapping his words. Dean's eyes widened and he made a quick movement to the door, stepping out and into the hall as if the difference in two feet would make our presence less suspicious. I reluctantly followed, Sam painfully close behind, the mild difference in light between rooms making everything a shade darker with even darker cut edges. The blonde girl who had given us near attitude stepped forward with her hand delicately against the wall, the alternating shadows clinging to her body while leaving her face pale and illuminated with suspicion.

"What are you doing up here?" She asked, a brief smile of disbelief on her lips that smoothed out evenly over the rest of her face as stronger suspicion took over.

"We …," Dean started scrambling through his head and the effort drawing his face blank. "…We had to go to the bathroom." A proud grin sketched itself on his lips and he nodded with a "case closed" manner. Yes Dean, all three of us … at the same time.

"Who are you?" She demanded, failing to fall for the poor excuse, the light still penciling various shades over her face.

"Like we said downstairs, we work with Donna's dad," Dean answered, his confidence faltering in his explanation and giving it warped glass like view into the fact that he was lying.

"He was a day trader or something. He worked by himself," she slowly pointed out, her eyes darting quickly between the three of us with barely disguised disbelief and bordering disgust.

"No, I know …," Dean insisted, an uneasy laugh carving through his words. " … I meant …"

"And all those weird questions downstairs …,"she continued, a fractured smile glittering off her lip glossed lips. "What was that?"

"So you tell me what's going on …," she began in response to our silence, removing her grip from the wall and folding it over her chest in superficial confidence. "… or I start screaming."  
>"Alright," Sam cut in, a hand set to Dean's chest as a silent command for him to keep his mouth shut. "We think something happened to Donna's dad."<br>"Yeah, a stroke," she replied, with the word "duh" left from her words and her eyes blinking rapidly like they further proved her point.  
>"That's not the sign of a typical stroke," Sam pointed out, his eyes darted to the floor where the faded blood still marked the tiles, Dean also looking down. She glanced down cautiously at the blood and again raised her eyes, the dusted pieces of her mind beginning to fall into their place.<br>"We think it might be something else," Sam said, his voice deepened on his words and the feel crawled over my skin in an irritated tremble.  
>"Like what?" She asked, intrigue picking apart her voice and her hand again placed to the wall with the shadow of it stretched down the paint.<br>"Honestly …," Sam began, shaking his head somewhat and the movement darting the shadows over his face. "… We don't know yet." Her eyes narrowed with amused disbelief as if she had expected the answer. "But we don't want it to happen to anyone else. That's the truth." She stared back at Sam, the shadows gathered and changed under her eyes and alternated their look from uncertainty to trust.  
>"So if you want to scream go right ahead," I challenged, silently calculating how many steps it would take to step to her and punch her in the throat before she opened her mouth. She lowered her eyes before lifting them again, her eyelashes curled along her cheeks in the movement as she thought all we said through.<br>"Who are you, cops?" She asked, avoiding the direct thought and squinting her eyes somewhat in her continued attempt to piece it all together. Sam and Dean glanced at one another above my head, Dean tilting his head back and forth slightly in a silent "why not."  
>"Something like that," he replied, the sunlight clipped through his spiked hair and an edge of irony to his otherwise stoic voice.<br>"Tell you what," Sam said, digging through his jacket pocket and his head ducked to help maneuver his search. "Here. If you think of anything, you or your friends notice anything strange, out of the ordinary, just give us a call." His eyes lowered to the pen and slip of paper he had retrieved and he jotted down his number, handing it to her and walking past as he did so, his shoulders barely brushing against the wall. I followed after, my hands dug into my pockets and catching a glimpse of Dean checking the girl out from behind in the mirror hung adjacent from my steps.  
>"Say Bloody Mary really is haunting this town," Dean began, stepping through the doors and into the library, the sunlight fallen onto the walls and shelves in softened blocks and leaving the rest of the room shrouded in a dusk. "There's gonna be some sort of proof, right? A local woman who died nasty."<br>"Yeah. But a legend this widespread is hard," Sam pointed out, his arms swung awkwardly in his steps and stretched in their shadows over the floor. "I mean there's like 50 versions of who she actually is. One story says she's a witch. Another says she's a mutilated bride. There's a lot more."  
>"So, what are we supposed to be looking for?" I asked, stepping past the glass window with the words "Central Public Library. Monday – Friday 10am – 6pm. Saturday &amp; Sunday 10am – 4pm" carved in. So if this was the library, what was the first room we walked into …?<br>"Every versions got a few things in common," Sam continued, beginning to count off his fingers. "It's always a woman named Mary and she always dies right in front of a mirror." We stepped into the library, streams of light cut down from a skylight and lengthening everything's shadow across the floor.  
>"So we gotta search local newspapers," Sam observed, his hand at my elbow and his fingers pressed through my jacket and a whirl of intoxication from him standing so close stripping whatever emotions from him I was feeling bare. "Public records as far back as the go." He slid his hold from mine and lifted his arms as if in a shrug, the light from the skylight goldening over his hair and shoulders. "See if we can find the Mary who fits the bill."<br>"Well, that sounds annoying," Dean said dryly, the lines along his jaw tightened at the prospect.  
>"No, it won't be so bad," Sam insisted with a casual wave of his hand and his eyes darting around the room. "Uh, as we …" His eyes rested and I followed their gaze to the two desktops with paper signs taped to the screen with the words "Out of Order" written across them."Ha, I take it back. This will be very annoying."<br>I swept my hair back from my face and over my shoulder, my wrist creased from holding up my head and the book spread across my lap with the hard edges dug into my stomach. I ran my fingers down the softened pages from frequent use, my eyes blurring the words and I blinked rapidly, their shape falling back into sharpened curves. God, I could use a beer. Sam jerked from the head of the bed and gasped, the sound followed breathlessly and I glanced down to where he lay, his eyes opened and staring at the ceiling as reality resettled upon him.  
>"Why'd you let me fall asleep?" He asked quietly, his voice softened and saddened and his hand placed over the uneasy breaths of his chest.<br>"Because I'm an awesome brother," Dean remarked, removing his hand from where it rested at his forehead and scratching at his nose. He settled back into his seat and his eyes fallen back to Sam with concern darkening their color. "So what'd you dream about?"  
>"Lollipops and candy canes," Sam replied dryly, his eyes darting back and forth over the ceiling and the light from the window perfectly framed around his head. It traced itself along the strands of his hair and the details of his face and a burn swelled in my throat in the desire to follow them with my fingers.<br>"Yeah, sure," Dean said in disbelief, his eyebrows raised and his eyes falling over the stack of books littered over the table. Sam lifted his head slightly to take me in at the end of the bed and the desire thickened itself, sharpened at the edges in frustration at the desire in the first place.  
>"Find anything?" He asked quietly, his chest fallen as he sighed deeply and his eyes tracing along me like he was mesmerizing me.<br>"Yeah," I said, readjusting the cross of my legs and blood prickled underneath my skin in the shift. "While you were sleeping Dean and I discovered that a few local woman – Laura and Cathryn – committed suicide in front of a mirror. And giant mirror fell on a guy named Dave but … no Mary." Sam raised his eyebrows at the harshness of my voice and I lowered my eyes back to the book and closed it with a thud, my fingers dug along the edge and swallowing the desire still burned in my throat. The bed shuddered somewhat as Sam fell back with a sigh, the tremors faded through the rest of the mattress.  
>"Maybe we just haven't found it yet," Sam suggested the faintest trace of hope to his voice that riddled itself with exhaustion. Great, more dusty books.<br>"We've also been searching for strange deaths in the area," Dean continued, picking off the details that I hadn't voiced. "You know, eyeball bleeding, that sort of thing. There's nothing. Whatever's happening here maybe just ain't Mary." A cell phone rung and Sam lifted his head and reached for his cell phone tossed beside him.  
>"Hello?" He asked with a sigh, his eyes squinting with confusion as whoever was on the other end of the line spoke.<br>Charlie sniffed wetly, her hands clasped tightly between her legs and her head bowed and trembled in her sobs, the shattered sunlight through the leaves of the tree above us spotting over her jacket.  
>" … And they found her on the bathroom floor," she continued, gasps breaking up her words. "And her … her eyes. They were gone." She gestured with a shaking hand and glanced up to Dean, her eyes still tear filled and darkening their edges pink.<br>"I'm sorry," Sam said sympathetically, his voice impossibly soft and crawled underneath my skin like a never ending chill.  
>"And she said it," Charlie gasped, wiping at her nose and a perfected tear frozen on her cheek and illuminating the pink of her skin. "I heard her say it. But it couldn't be because of that." Her words faded as she said them, desperation dragged along their shape and her eyes pleading. "I'm insane, right?"<br>"No, you're not insane," Dean insisted, Sam glancing over at him with softened eyes.  
>"God, that makes me feel so much worse," she said, her eyelashes caught together with tears and the pink from her cheeks fading to an unnatural pale.<br>"Look," Sam began, the sunlight curled into the creases of his jacket. "We think something's happening here. Something that can't be explained." Charlie raised her eyes to both Sam and Dean, a sense of utter delicacy to her that spun itself into the details of her paled cheeks and pink rimmed eyes.  
>"And we're going to stop it," Dean finished, turned to Charlie and his words visibly pulsed in his throat. "But we could use your help." She turned her gaze up to me, the sun glinted across her lip glossed lips, and her eyes detailed in a silent pleading for me to burst out that it was all a joke. A sympathetic smile that I didn't feel pulled at the corner of my lip and she lowered her eyes with<br>saddened defeat.  
>Charlie opened the window with a creak that stretched along the grooves in the frame and stepped back from the opening, the move pulling the collar of her shirt further open in an almost subtle reveal of her breasts. Sam raised himself from his crouch and stepped through the opening, ducking his head to prevent it hitting against the frame and grunting as he settled his feet onto the floor. Dean also stood and tossed his duffel bag through the window, Sam catching it and moving away from my awkwardly cut view of him through the glass. Dean gestured his head for me to go through first and I gripped my hands into the sill and stepped through, my boots slipping on the gritted tile of the roof. That would be a crappy way to die, falling off a roof.<br>"What did you tell Jill's mom?" Sam asked, turned to Charlie and his hands dug into the duffel.  
>"I just said I needed some time alone with Jill's pictures and things," Charlie explained, Dean followed behind me and shutting the window and curtains so the light faded from the room.<br>"Good," Sam congratulated, pulling a video camera out of the duffel and turning it over in his hands.  
>"I hate lying to her," Charlie pointed out, digging her fingers into her hair as if she had a sudden headache.<br>"Trust us, it's for the greater good," Dean assured her, his hand on her lower back in a form of one handed comfort. "Hit the lights." She darted to the door and I dug through the corners of the duffel, my fingers gripping over the poorly constructed EMF meter and I pulled it out as the light clicked off and every shadow significantly darkened.  
>"What are you guys looking for?" Charlie asked in confusion, walking back over to where we stood and the remaining light illuminating the creases formed in her forehead.<br>"We'll let you know as soon as we find it," Dean said simply, his eyes lowered to his own EMF and his fingers fiddling over the poorly constructed dials.  
>"Hey, night vision," Sam said, holding out the camera to Dean who switched on a button from the side. "Thanks. Perfect." He raised the lens and through my angle I could see the blue tinted view of Dean played on the miniature screen. Dean carefully turned himself and looked back over his shoulder with a smirk.<br>"Do I look like Paris Hilton?" He asked, his eyebrows raised suggestively. Sam laughed under his breath and moved away from the bed, the camera held out in front of him. I lowered my eyes to the EMF and switched it on, a whirr of noise emitted as a result. I moved around the edge of the bed, the softened curve of the quilt brushed against my legs as I maneuvered the EMF carefully in front of me. I ran it over the pink bathrobe hung over the desk chair and along the various pieces tossed on the desk itself. Hair products, some notebooks, a candle … Deans reflection came to stand behind me as he did and I glanced up at him, his body drawn painfully close to mine and his eyes lowered to the EMF in his hand. He raised his eyes as he felt me staring at him, and I lifted my eyebrows, silently questioning him and he sighed, moving away from me but in the movement his hip pressing to mine. I rolled my eyes and scanned the EMF over the desktop screen, smudged fingerprints dotted over the surface.  
>"So I don't get it," Sam broke in from across the room, the reflection of him in the mirror showing him carefully bending to scan the camera over the mirror stuck to the closet door. "I mean, the first victim didn't summon Mary, and the second victim did. How's she choosing them?"<br>"Beats me," Dean shrugged from beside the bed, the EMF in his hand and sweeping carefully over the neatly folded bed. Sam closed the closet door and quickly stepped over to the mirror on the desk next to me, my body tensed with the feel of him inches away. I moved away from the desk forcibly and stepped into the bathroom, the details of the room pale and generic, several candles lined up against the counter. What kind of teenager had candles?  
>"I wanna know why Jill said it in the first place," Dean pointed out, a hint of accusation to his voice muffled by the separation of rooms.<br>"It was just a joke," Jill defended quietly, and I stepped around to the shower, pulling at the curtain and running the EMF along the numerous hair products lining the walls.  
>"Well, somebody's going to say it again. It's just a matter of time," Dean observed, steps creaked on the tile and I turned as Sam stepped into the room. He smiled somewhat nervously and my heart rate carefully increased, tinged with the sudden awareness of the tight space of the room.<br>"Find anything?" He asked, gestured to the shower and I turned to it, the multicolored bottles standing out against the pale shade of the walls.  
>"Nothing really, just that she has about a million hair products," I pointed out, the text on the bottles alternated in size and font. Sam snorted slightly and I bite my lip against the tingle it crawled up my spine. I stepped my boot onto the edge and reached for one of the bottles with a nozzle and black letters written over the shimmered surface. "I mean … Sulfate-free humidity defying leave-in crème?" I squinted my eyes in confusion at the words. "I mean, what the hell does that mean?"<br>"How should I know?" Sam asked, glancing at me from where he stood at the mirror, the camera frozen in his hands along the frame.  
>"Because you have hair," I shrugged, setting the bottle back into the corner and stepped down the edge.<br>"So do you," he pointed out with a laugh and I swept my hair back from my face as he paused with the camera held under the bottom of the frame.  
>"What is it?" I asked, stepping over and my footsteps crackled on the poorly glued tile and standing by his arm, the blue tinted image of something dripped under the mirror visible.<br>"Hey," Sam called, re-standing and turning to Dean and Charlie still talking in the bedroom. "There's a black light in the trunk, right?"  
>Sam awkwardly maneuvered through the doorway with the mirror supported heavily in his hands, Dean pulling down the frame of the window. Sam set the mirror onto the bed where it creased on the quilt and knelt beside it on the floor, Dean drawing the curtains and coming to join us, tossing the black light to Sam. I leaned over the back of the mirror and peeled at the brown paper, tearing it easily down the surface and pulling the remained pieces. Sam turned on the black light and swept it over the back, the blue shade of the light illuminating a smudged hand print pressed to the surface. He moved it down further, the poorly written words "Gary Bryman" visible peeled out from under the light.<br>"Gary Bryman?" Charlie read in confusion.  
>"You know who that is?" Sam asked in half hearted hope, snapping his head over to look at her.<br>"No," she said uncertainly, shaking her head. Liar.  
>The gravel of the path shifted under my boots and I crossed my arms over my chest with the sunlight folding along the curves of my jacket.<br>"Cold?" Sam asked, taking note of my movement, his arm swinging with the piece of paper pinched between his fingers. "Or do you not get cold?"  
>"What do you mean?" I asked, the sunlight falling over his broadened shoulders and down his arms.<br>"Well, with the whole fire thing," he said uneasily, as if he was uncertain how to word it right. I smiled and folded my arms tighter over my chest.  
>"No, I get cold like everyone else," I informed him, as if on cue a chill catching under my sleeves and along my skin.<br>"Huh," he said in interest, the shapes of Dean and Charlie on the park bench becoming visible. "So Gary Bryman was an eight-year-old boy." He turned around the bench, his finger grasped onto the back and nodding at me to take the seat. I shook my head and stepped back onto the crunched grass and he shrugged, taking the seat for himself. "Two years ago, he was killed in a hit-and-run. The car was described as a black Toyota Camry …." He glanced at the slip of paper in his hands and back up again, checking for details. "… but nobody got the plates or saw the driver."  
>"Oh my god," Charlie said suddenly, her eyes widened and her cheeks paling.<br>"What?" Sam asked, turning at her interruption.  
>"Jill drove that car," she said in horror, her eyes turned to Dean and still widened with the sudden realization. Sam and Dean glanced at each other before Dean glanced up at me, the cut of the sun curved up the spikes of his hair and darkening their shadow.<br>"We need to go back to your friend Donna's house," Dean remarked, turning back to Charlie and the sun printing itself along his neck.  
>Sam ran the black light along the black of the mirror, the surface turning blue and the smudged words "Linda Shoemaker" becoming visible.<br>"Linda Shoemaker," Sam read slowly, his hand offered beside the name with the light still humming. Sam looked up from where he knelt so his eyes rested on mine and the light from the other room tenderly brushed across the side of his face.  
>"Where are you asking me this?" Donna demanded, her eyes narrowed suspiciously.<br>"Look, we're sorry, but it's important," Sam apologized, kind but a sense of urgency to his voice. She stared at him for a moment, her eyes still suspicious and the shadows of her hair curled up her neck.  
>"Yeah. Linda's my mom, okay?" She said, anger clipped to her voice and her eyes darted back and forth over the three of us. "And she overdosed on sleeping pills. It was an accident and that's it." Her voice grew more hostile and snapped on her last words. Sam turned to me and I lowered my eyes, suddenly feeling like something was pinched in my chest.<br>"I think you should go," Donna continued, her voice heavy with angered suggestion.  
>"Donna, just listen …," Dean attempted calmly.<br>"Just get out of my house!" She yelled and shoved past, her footsteps rushed across the floorboards.  
>"Oh, my God," Charlie said slowly. "You don't think her dad could've killed her mom?"<br>"Maybe," Sam said sadly, his Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed.  
>"I think I should stick around," Charlie suggested, her head tilted and the light sparking down the strands of her hair. Sam nodded with his silent agreement of it being a good idea.<br>"All right. Well, just, whatever you do, don't …," Dean trailed off, his remaining words unnecessary.  
>"Believe me, I won't say it," Charlie said fiercely, shaking her head on her last words.<br>The printer whirred irritatingly, slips of paper sliding out from the tray and onto the table.  
>"Wait, wait, wait …," Sam said, turning from the bulletin board of pinned papers and pictures. "You're doing a nationwide search?"<br>"Yep," Dean pointed out, dragging out the word and the light from the laptop screen tinting his face blue. "The NCIC, the FBI database. At this point any Mary in the country who died in front of a mirror is good enough for me." I stepped around the curve of the table to stand behind his chair, web pages darted open on the screen.  
>"But if she's haunting the town then she should have died in the town," Sam pointed out, sitting on the edge of the bed and putting pressure on the occasional word to make his point.<br>"I'm telling you there's nothing local," Dean said, shaking his head and turning back to the screen. "So unless you have a better idea …" He trailed off, leaving his sentence hanging and darting his eyes back across the screen.  
>"The way Mary's choosing her victims, it seems like there's a pattern," Sam broke off, rubbing at the back of his neck.<br>"I know I was thinking the same thing," Dean said, tilting his head back to look at Sam.  
>"With Mr. Shoemaker and Jill's hit-and-run …," Sam continued, glancing behind him and then back to Dean.<br>"Both had secrets where people died," I said quietly, the words breaking in my throat. Sam and Dean both glanced up at me as if just remembering that I was there.  
>"Right," Sam said softly, his eyes still on me and catching the break in my voice. "There's a lot of folklore about mirrors. That they reveal all your lies, all your secrets. That they're a true reflection of your soul." I didn't like this conversation. "Which is why its bad luck to break them."<br>"Right, right," Dean said, turned back to the computer screen and deep in thought. "So maybe if you've got a secret, like a really nasty one, where someone died, then Mary sees it and punishes you for it." I lowered my eyes to the floor, my fingers gripped to the chair and the tightness of my hold making them burn. Burn, burning …  
>"Kate you alright?" Sam asked and I snapped my head up, his eyes staring into mine and the bursts of color in them reshaping as if he was trying to read my thoughts.<br>"Yeah, I'm fine," I said quickly, turning away from him and twisting my fingers deeper to the chair. Burn, burning, screaming …  
>The printer whirred gratingly, black and white pages spewing from the tray and scattering over the table. I picked up one of the pages on top and turned it properly in my hands, the image of a girl dead in front of a mirror with smudged words and a handprint slid to the glass.<br>"Looks like the same handprint," I pointed out, kneeling beside Sam and gestured to the smeared handprints nearly identical to one another on the separate photos.  
>"Her name was Mary Worthington," Dean said, reading off from the screen. "An unsolved murder in Fort Wayne, Indiana."<br>"I was on the job for 35 years," the detective pointed out, walking through the doorway and the thinning shadows cutting over his pant legs. Couldn't anyone afford proper lighting anymore? "Detective for most of that. Now, everybody packs it in with a few loose ends. But the Mary Worthington murder … that one still gets me." He sighed deeply, his head lowered and the move creasing the lines of his face and the salt and pepper hairs of his moustache.  
>"What exactly happened?" Dean asked, stepping across the room and the change of the light shifting over his face and darkening his good looks.<br>"You three said you were reporters?" the Detective said, his voice balanced between confusion and curiosity.  
>"We know Mary was 19 …," Sam began, taking a deep breath as if preparing himself for a long speech. "… Lived by herself. We know she won a few local beauty contests, dreamt of getting out of Indiana, being an actress. And we know the night of March 29th someone broke into her apartment and murdered her. Cut out her eyes with a knife." The detective stared at him for a moment in surprise, Sam supposedly passing his test.<br>"That's right," he agreed slowly. I stepped around the couch and settled on the arm rest and dug my toes into the carpet to keep from sliding off.  
>"See, so when we ask you what happened, we wanna know what you think happened," Dean pointed out, picking up where he had left off.<br>The cabinet drawer scrapped shut, the detective pulling away with a box in his hands that burst with folders and paper.  
>"Technically, I'm not supposed to have a copy of this," he pointed out, maneuvering over to the table and setting the box down with a grunt. Sam smirked slightly and sat on the edge of the desk and angling himself so he could lean over the box. The detective pulled out a folder and started flipping through the pages.<br>"Now," he began, turning the folder around to show us a photo of Mary collapsed bloody by a mirror. "See that there?" He pointed to the words poorly stained onto the glass. "T-R-E?"  
>"Yeah," Dean said, glancing from the photo back up to the detective.<br>"I think Mary was trying to spell out the name of her killer," he said, his voice hushed and his eyes darting between the three of us.  
>"You know who it was?" I asked, titling my head and the black and white photo staining itself into my mind.<br>"Not for sure," he admitted, turned back to the photo and flipping through several others. "But there was a local man, a surgeon …," he flipped another black and white photo of a man on top of the pile. " … Trevor Sampson. And I think he cut her up good."  
>"Now, why would he do something like that?" Sam asked curiously, his head tilted with intrigue and the light from the window dotted over his jacket.<br>"Her diary mentioned a man that she was seeing," the detective – whose name I should probably find out – carried on, Sam turning the pad of paper in his lap and jotting words across the page. "She called him by his initial, T. Well, her last entry, she was going to tell T's wife about their affair."  
>"Yeah but how do you know it was this guy Sampson who killed her?" Dean asked, straightening himself from where he leaned on the desk.<br>"It's hard to say," the detective admitted, the hairs of his moustache sharpened in the poor light. "But the way her eyes were cut out, it was almost professional." Dean nodded, accepting the logic.  
>"But you could never prove it," Dean pointed out, his voice a perfect balance between question and fact.<br>"No. No prints, no witnesses. He was meticulous," he glanced over at Sam who was still writing, a hushed sense of conspiracy in his voice.  
>"Is he still alive?" I asked, shifting my stance and the blood quickening from its standstill in my legs.<br>"Nope," he said simply, sitting back in his chair with the photos gathered in his hands and sighing deeply. "If you ask me, Mary spent her last living moments trying to expose this guy's secret. But she never could." His eyes fell back to the desk sadly.  
>"Where's she buried?" Sam wondered, Dean turning his attention back to the detective at the question.<br>"She wasn't. She was cremated," he said matter of factly. Well … fuck.  
>"What about that mirror?" Dean asked suddenly, pointed to the mirror in the photo, the ornate details of its frame darkened in the black and white. "It's not in some evidence lockup, is it?"<br>"Ah, no," the detective said with a sigh sitting back. "It was returned to Mary's family a long time ago."  
>"You have the names of her family by any chance?" Sam asked with dared hope.<br>"Oh really? Ah, that's too bad Mr. Worthington," Sam sighed, his cell phone pressed close to his ear. "I would've paid a lot for that mirror. Okay. Well, maybe next time." Yeah, next time you have a family member brutally murdered in front of a mirror give us a call. I slid down further in the seat, the seat belt cutting uncomfortably over my stomach and the blood uncomfortably shifting back through my legs. Sam clicked his phone off and closed the antenna with his teeth, the move unnaturally attractive.  
>"So?" Dean asked, an arm rested over the steering wheel and the shapes passing the windows glimpsing over his face and arms.<br>"So that was Mary's brother," Sam informed us, resting his head onto his folded arm and the breeze through the open window rustling his curled hair. "The mirror was in the family for years until he sold it. One week ago." He scoffed slightly, shaking his head. "To a store called Estate Antiques. A store in Toledo."  
>"So wherever the mirror goes, Mary goes?" I questioned, sitting up further and a burst of wind catching me in the face and briefly stealing my breath.<br>"Her spirit's definitely tied to up with it somehow," Sam agreed, the cut of the rearview window showing the thoughtful dart of his eyes.  
>"Isn't there an old superstition that says mirrors can capture spirits?" Dean asked, his head titled somewhat as the thought occurred to him.<br>"Yeah, there is," Sam said, continuing on Dean's words. "When someone would die in a house, people would cover up the mirrors so the ghosts wouldn't get trapped."  
>"So Mary dies in front of a mirror, and it draws in her spirit," Dean pointed out, glancing over at Sam for confirmation.<br>"Yeah, but how could she move through like, a hundred different mirrors?" Sam asked in confusion, his shoulders raised in a shrug. Maybe she has a good frequent flyer program.  
>"I don't know, but if the mirror's a source, I say we find it and smash it," Dean suggested, his eyes darting between Sam and the road.<br>"Yeah, I don't know. Maybe," Sam said, his eyes visibly darted back and forth in thought. His cell phone buzzed and he raised it to his ear, flipping it open.  
>"Hello?" He greeted politely. He straightened suddenly. "Charlie?"<br>Charlie adjusted her hold on her sweater, tufts of her hair burst from the neck of it and her shoulders rocked back and forth somewhat with almost inaudible whimpers coming from her lips. I paused in my movements, sympathy tugged in my chest and various pathetic attempts of comfort darted half heartedly through my mind. Sam stepped past me to the painting and pulled it down from the wall, his finger dug into the ornate frame. I walked over to where she sat and pulled the pillow case off the quilt next to her and she flinched at the noise. I turned back to the TV and draped the case over the screen and tucked it around the edges.  
>"Hey," Sam said quietly and I turned to see him seated next to Charlie, his voice painfully soft and like a caress run up my spine. "Hey, it's okay. You can open up your eyes, Charlie. It's okay. All right." She cautiously raised her eyes, her fingers still twisted into her sweater and her face stained with tears that dampened her cheeks in a sheen. "Now, listen. You're going to stay right here, on this bed. And you're not gonna look at glass or anything else that has a reflection, okay? Now, as long as you do that, she cannot get to you."<br>"But I can't keep that up forever," She pointed out, her words muffled by the wool of her sweater and her fingers dug into the threads. "I'm going to die aren't I?" She glanced over at Sam before me, a crystallized tear rolled down her cheek.  
>"No," I said, the sound of my own voice surprising me almost as much as the word I spoke. Sam looked over at me in his own surprise before turning back to Charlie.<br>"No, not any time soon," he said kindly and she lowered her head back onto her knees with the tear on her cheek stained onto her jeans.  
>"All right, Charlie," Dean said and stepped over to the bed and twisting himself more comfortably on the end, the light barely peaked through the window crawled up his bare forearm. "We need to know what happened."<br>"We were in the bathroom," Charlie explained, again rocking back and forth on the quilt. "Donna said it."  
>"That's not what he means," I said quietly, the case over the TV shifted against my back and she lifted her tear filled eyes to my clear eyed ones. She stared at me, the collapsed tears hung to her eyes sparking their own light and suddenly I knew. I swallowed hard, the feel like swallowing glass and lowered my eyes, the memory of screams broken in my ears.<br>"I had this boyfriend," she began quietly and I closed my eyes, images pressed to them that for so long I couldn't erase and for so long I had tried. "I loved him, but he kind of scared me too, you know? And one night at his house, we got in this fight and I broke up with him." She paused in her words, the sound of unshed tears hung roughly in her breaths. "And he got upset and said he needed me and he loved me. And he said: "Charlie, if you walk out that door right now, I'm gonna kill myself." And do you know what I said? I said: "Go ahead." And I left." She paused again and I raised my eyes, a nearly invisible and yet painfully noticeable tremble gripped up her arms. "How could I say that? How could I leave him like that? I just … I didn't believe him, you know? I should've." She lowered her head back to her folded arms and her shoulders shook as she began to sob.  
>"You know, her boyfriend killing himself, that's not really Charlie's fault," Dean said matter of factly, the scrap of the windshield wipers against the rain stained glass like an afterthought beneath his voice. That's not really Charlie's fault,"<br>"You know as well as I do spirits don't really see shades of gray," Sam said with a dry exhaustion, the darted light of the streetlights carving along the side of his face. "Dean, Charlie had a secret, someone died. That's good enough for Mary."  
>"I guess," Dean said with a shrug, leaning forward somewhat and squinting at the soaked windshield.<br>"You know, I've been thinking," Sam said, swallowing in his pause as he rethought his next words. "It might not just be enough to just smash that mirror."  
>"Why, what do you mean?" Dean asked, glancing over and a car speeding by with a blind of headlights.<br>"Well, Mary's hard to pin down, right?" Sam asked, thinking out loud. "She moves from mirror to mirror. So who's to say she's not gonna just keep hiding in them forever. So maybe … we should try to pin her down. You know, summon her to her mirror and then smash it."  
>"Well, how do you know that's going to work?" Dean asked curiously, the blur of the raindrops broken over his face.<br>"I don't," Sam admitted quietly. "Not for sure."  
>"Well, who's going to summon her?" Dean asked, daring Sam to answer.<br>"I will," Sam said in hardened determination, his gaze darting through the windshield. "She'll come after me."  
>"All right, you know what? That's it," Dean said through his teeth in exasperation, the wheels of the Impala sloshing over the soaked road as he pulled over. The engine rumbled restlessly and the windshield wipers continued to screech back and forth over the glass in a cut through the streetlights.<br>"This is about Jessica, isn't it?" Dean asked, turning to Sam and his arm stretched over the back of the seat, his fingers gestured over the leather. Sam didn't say anything, the minute shifts of his eyes dark and the look of them twisted coldly in my stomach. "You think that's your dirty little secret? That you killed her somehow?" Sam barely glanced at him out of the corner of his eyes, still silent and a muscle tightened in his jaw. "Sam, this has gotta stop, man. I mean, the nightmares, and … and calling her name out in the middle of the night, it's going to kill you. Now, listen to me." The force of his words darkened. "It wasn't your fault. If you want to blame something the blame the thing that killed her. Or hell, why don't you take a swing at me. I mean, I'm the one who dragged you away from her in the first place."  
>"I don't blame you," Sam assured him, turned and his eyes broken in sincerity.<br>"Well, you shouldn't blame yourself," Dean pointed out matter of factly. "Because there's nothing you could have done."  
>"I could have warned her," Sam insisted, his voice thick.<br>"About what?" Dean demanded loudly. "You didn't know what was going to happen." Sam turned away, the muscle still tight in his jaw and lining along the rest of his face in exasperation. "And besides, all of this isn't a secret. I mean, I know all about it. It's not going to work with Mary anyway."  
>"No, you don't," Sam said, his voice low.<br>"I don't what?" Dean asked after a moment, between his eyes creased with the question.  
>"You don't know all about it," Sam casually pointed out, turning back to Dean and shrugging so the blurred light from the streetlight darkened over him. "I haven't told you everything." The sound of the rain echoed against the metal detailing of the Impala, the silence beneath it suffocating.<br>"What are you talking about?" Dean asked his voice almost inaudible.  
>"You guys, just shut up," I burst out, exasperation sharpening my voice and making it seem unnaturally loud in the softened fall of the rain. "She'll come after me."<br>"What?" Sam asked, his words clipped on the end of mine and turning in his seat so he faced me. "Why?"  
>"That's cheating," I said quietly, the burn of the light behind him framing his face and breaking like shards of glass in my chest. "Just trust me on this." I glanced over at Dean, the burn of Sam's gaze prickled under my skin like goose bumps. Dean stared back at me, the blur of the light through the raindrops spotted along his jacket and face, his eyes shifting and searching over my face with a touch of uncertainly. He slowly turned back in his seat, Sam mirroring his movements until I was left facing the back of their heads and the blur of the raindrops. Burn, burning, screaming …<br>The sound of Sam turning the lock twisted and broke in the near silent air, his back hunched over it and the streaked streetlight curled into the creases of his jacket. Dean glanced around warily, the darkened light shading over him blue. His gaze fell onto me and I dug my fingers into the sleeves of my jacket, ignoring him and the questions he desperately wanted to ask. The lock clicked and Sam straightened, pulling open the door and the thick gold words on the glass tracing their shadow further over the sidewalk. I followed after him and into the store, the reflections of a dozen or so mirrors shattering me across one another and the floor. Sam lifted his flashlight, the spark of light broken across the frames and glass and illuminating the dust that sparkled over my miscalculation of about one hundred mirrors. Well … fuck.  
>"Well … that's just great," Dean sarcastically voiced, his hands on his hips and creasing at his jacket, Sam still shifting the flashlight's beam over the room. Dean dug his hand through his pocket and pulled out the folded photograph of the mirror and I leaned over his shoulder at the black and white photo of the body and ornate frame. "All right, let's start looking." I stepped past him and further into the room, the floorboards creaking under my footsteps and dust painted to my jeans. The light from Sam's flashlight illuminated the aged edges of the various furniture as he walked down an aisle, his footsteps loud. I scanned over the poorly arranged antiques, my fingers crossed close to my chest and against the irritatingly fast beat of my heart. The flashlight turned and blinded me briefly and I squinted as Sam lowered it.<br>"Sorry," he apologized, it's ray now broken over the dusted floor. Had these people never heard of Swiffer? I rolled my eyes and turned, the blank expression of a mannequin staring back at me. I jerked back in surprise, Sam laughing lowly and I turned to glare at him. He cleared his throat, the sound of the laugh still burned in my ears and I walked past him and the line of mirrors hung from a wire fence.  
>"Maybe they've already sold it," Dean suggested, his voice muffled from wherever he was searching. Sam walked up beside me, flashlight beam still turned and he paused as it fell onto a mirror with a large ornate frame.<br>"I don't think so," he called back, stepping closer and the light becoming brighter. Dean's footsteps grew louder and his reflection cut from the side of the glass until he stood beside me. He pulled the crumbled paper from his pocket and held it up to compare.  
>"That's it," he confirmed, crumbling it back into his jacket. He exhaled loudly; his cheeks briefly puffed with the air and glanced at me. "You sure about this?" I ignored him, my shadowy shape poorly reflected on the dirtied surface and I carefully stepped forward, Sam and Dean staring at me as I did so. I froze inches away from the surface, screaming and the smell of burning so loud in my ears and under my skin that it choked in me like raw panic.<br>"Bloody Mary," I said quietly, the words caught in my throat. "Bloody Mary." I took a deep breath, feeling sick everywhere. "Bloody Mary."  
>The lights of a passing car spun over the room and Dean turned as it grew brighter over the entrance way and blinding in the reflections of a hundred mirrors. Shit.<br>"I'll go check that out," Dean offered, half stepping towards the doorway and turning back. "You two stay here. Be careful." He paused and stared at me for a moment, words on the tip of his tongue that he couldn't say. "Be careful." I barely nodded and turned back to the mirror, a lump in my throat.  
>"Smash anything that moves," He called back, his footsteps rushed over the floor. "Unless it's Kate." I rolled my eyes as his steps faded, Sam resting a crowbar to his shoulder and his hands tightly fisted around it. I licked my dry lips and re-dug my fingernails into my palms, my heartbeat echoed and near deafingly in my ears.<br>"You going to tell me why she'll come after you?" Sam asked, his eyes darting over the room and his fingers tightening over the metal.  
>"No," I said simply.<br>"Why not?" He asked, a rustling echoed in the chandelier and his body jerked at the sound. My own body tightened and my fingers dug deeper into my palm. God I hate everything.  
>"Everyone's entitled to their own secrets, Sammy," I said quietly, loosening the grip of my fingers. The floor seemed to slant underneath me and I adjusted my stance, the creak of my boots loud. "Would … would it help if I told you that it was an accident?"<br>"A little," he admitted, suddenly jerking and smashing the crowbar against the mirror next to me. I tensed as the mirror broke and the shards shattered further to the floorboards. He turned again, smashing the mirror on the other side and glass breaking over my boots and echoing in my ears with the sound.  
>"Just practicing or did you see her?" I asked as he stepped back protectively next to me, crowbar still clenched.<br>"No, I saw her," he said through his teeth, adjusting his grip on the metal. I nodded slowly, turning back to the mirror, a smirk pulling at the lips of my reflection. I froze, as the smirk broadened on her lips, malice to the look that sunk itself deep into her eyes. A trickle of blood leaked down her face and hot metal hooks seemed to claw and twist up my throat in a suffocating burn. I gasped, my legs beginning to collapse beneath me and the heat of blood curved along the side of my face.  
>"Kate?" Sam asked in a panic and my knees broke beneath me as I fell to the floor, a heat broken and dragged in my heart and suffocating me inside my chest. "Kate!" The crowbar clanked to the floor as he fell next to me, grabbing me by the elbows to hold me up. I choked, the roughened metallic taste of blood thick in my throat, my reflection slowly kneeling beside me, the blood still trickled down her face.<br>"You killed them," she said, her voice distorted and the same smirk painted to her lips. "All of them. Every. Last. One." A drop of blood fell to my lips and the burn in my throat twisted deeper. "You watched them burn. You listened to them scream."  
>"Kate look at me," Sam pleaded, his fingers digging in my hair and smearing the blood across my cheek. "Kate, please. Look at me."<br>"You listened to him burn," she continued, her smile widening and a laugh in her throat. "Jeremy. You listened to him burn. The flesh melt off his bones." I couldn't breathe. I couldn't breathe. "You just listened to him die. The man you claimed to love. Just die …"  
>"Kate please look at me," Sam begged, trying to turn me to face him, the burn consumed in my throat and broken by my chokes.<br>"Maybe that's what you do best though," she grinned, the laugh hovered on her blood stained lips. "Just stand by and watch as the people you love die …" A yell ripped through the air and Sam forced my face into his shoulder as glass exploded and pierced through my hair and into my jacket. The burn in my heart and throat vanished, air rushing back into my lungs and I gasped, Sam quickly pulled away and gripping my shoulders. I swayed in his hold, everything blurred on the edges as he swept my hair back from my face and digging his fingers into the strands.  
>"Kate!" Dean dropped to his knees beside us, crunching in the glass and holding at my arm. I swallowed hard, the burn like an acid aftertaste and my breaths gagging in my throat.<br>"Kate," Sam murmured his voice painfully quiet and I raised my eyes, both of their faces twisted in raw panic.  
>"I'm fine," I choked, swallowing again and my breaths slowing in my chest.<br>"You sure?" Dean asked, his fingers creased in my jacket.  
>"Just peachy," I said dryly and they both grinned, Dean removing his grip from my arm.<br>"Thank God," Sam breathed and I rested my hand to the glass strewn floor to stand, Sam's fingers gone from my hair. My legs wobbled beneath me again and I collapsed.  
>"Whoa, whoa," Sam called, catching me under the arm and Dean holding my other side. "Easy there."<br>"Come on, let's go," Dean urged, awkwardly turning us to the dusted light by the doors. My legs dragged beneath me, the glass crunching and Sam's shoulders bumping and rustled to the antiques. God I hate antiques. Glass crunched behind us and Dean and Sam froze, my feet awkwardly balanced in their pause. Oh shit … Dean loosened his grip and turned, the move awkwardly turning me and the distorted shape of Mary standing over the crunched and broken glass. Her movements jerked and skipped over themselves as she stepped closer, the greased strands of her hair broken over her face and her hate filled eyes visible between them. The burn forced itself back into my chest and throat and I gasped as both Sam and Dean choked next to me. My knees started to give as she dragged her legs in stunted steps, Sam crashing to the floor next to me. My knees gave out and I landed hard, Dean followed on my other side and the scent of burning and screaming everywhere under my skin. Sam grunted in pain next to me, Mary coming closer and her limbs unnaturally fallen at her sides. Dean twisted next to me, gripping the sides of a mirror and dragging it on top of himself, the heaviness of the edge dug into my stomach. She froze in her steps and stared at herself, the ache still suffocated in my chest and I choked on the feel, my fingers clutched at the mild edge of the floorboard. Her head twisted as it raised itself, the light from the window paling over her skin and her eyes sparkled with something that almost looked like sadness. She started to choke, a hand reached for her heart as she gasped, the wet trickle of blood darkened over her cheeks. Her body started to distort and misshapen, collapsing into herself and falling over the floor in a shower of shattered glass. The burn released itself and I fell back with a pant, every inch of me trembled as Dean tossed the mirror he was holding so it splintered across the floor. I struggled to raise myself, my elbows clenched in the hold as Dean and Sam straightened, blood smeared over their faces and down their necks.  
>"This has gotta be like … 600 years bad luck, right?" Dean panted, his voice roughened and he glanced over at us for confirmation.<br>"Maybe for you guys," I gasped, my arms beginning to weaken and shake beneath me. "I didn't touch a damn mirror." Dean laughed breathlessly, his arms draped over his legs and I collapsed back onto the floorboards.  
>The Impala screeched around the turn, the tires burned in the sharpness of it as Dean pulled onto the curb, his hands rested carefully over the wheel. The engine rumbled as he steered the Impala to a stop, keys jangling in his palm as he switched off the engine and turned, his arm stretched over the back of the seat.<br>"So this is really over?" Charlie asked, her voice quiet and dared on the hopeful.  
>"Yeah, it's over," I replied and she turned to me, the broken light from the back window cut over her shoulders.<br>"Thank you," she whispered and I tried to smile but the feel of it fell in the attempt.  
>"You're welcome," I answered and she glanced to Sam and Dean in the front seat, nodding to them both and sliding over to the door. It creaked as she opened it and stepped out, her shadow passing over the sun of the back seat and slammed it shut behind her. She slung her bag over her shoulder, her hair caught in the fabric and started to walk up the stone path.<br>"Charlie," Sam called and she turned, her eyebrows raised as she waited. "Your boyfriend's death … you should really try to forgive yourself. No matter what you did, you probably couldn't have stopped it. Sometimes bad things just happen." She slowly nodded, her eyes sparked sadly and the faintest trace of a smile to her lips. She turned back from the car and walked slowly up the stone path, her head bowed and the sunlight buried into her hair. Dean's hand jerked against Sam's jacket and he turned in surprise.  
>"That's good advice," he acknowledged with a small smile. Sam nodded, his smile barely touched to his lips and Dean drew back to the steering wheel, switching on the engine. Sam's eyes glanced at me in the mirror and held their gaze, the feel pressed against my chest like again I couldn't breathe. The Impala roared to life and around the curve, shadows broken over the sides and played over my lap.<br>"So Kate …," Dean began his words careful as he glanced at me in the mirror. "You going to tell us why she came after you?"  
>"Dean don't …," Sam pleaded, turning to look over at him. Dean's eyes darted over to him before returning to meet mine in the mirror. I smiled faintly.<br>"No. You guys haven't earned it yet," I said quietly, the smile uncomfortably still touched to my lips and Dean smirked somewhat. "Dean, I assure you. You can't earn it that way." His smile faded and his brow furrowed as he returned his gaze to the road, my words faint on his lips as he tried to make sense of them. Sam laughed slightly and turned back to the windshield, a grin wide on his face. I lowered my eyes to my fingers and smiled, sweeping my hair back from my face and turning to the window billowed with wind. It twisted at my hair and through the strands I saw a man standing on the curb with his eyes frozen on mine. My smile faded and my heart sank as the details of him filled out and grew sharper. Jeremy. He continued to stare at me, his face solemn and the wind pulled at the edges of his jacket and tousled through his hair. The cut of him fell through the window and I turned sharply in my seat to peer through the back window, his eyes still following me as the Impala burned past. Flames began to lick up along his body and fell around him, collapsing him into ash and billowed out into the wind with no trace. I slowly turned, my heart beat tensed in my chest and a broken feeling under my skin that ripped at me in the desperate need to cry. Sam and Dean barely glanced back at me and then at each other, their eyebrows raised in concern. I dug my fingers into my seatbelt and I swallowed hard, broken gasps trapped in my chest. Burn, burning, screaming … 


End file.
